{"id":395990,"date":"2025-09-04T01:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395990\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T01:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:25:10","slug":"colin-smyth-quits-holyrood-committee-over-secret-camera-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395990\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Smyth quits Holyrood committee over &#8216;secret camera&#8217; charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Colin Smyth stood down as chair of\u00a0Holyrood&#8217;s influential\u00a0Economy and Fair Work Committee on Monday evening.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  It comes after a\u00a0motion to oust the former Labour MSP was lodged by the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/topics\/snp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SNP<\/a>&#8216;s\u00a0Michelle Thomson.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/topics\/health\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Herald<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday it was \u201cinconceivable\u201d Mr Smyth could remain in post while facing such serious allegations, and warned that it risked bringing the committee and Parliament \u201cinto disrepute\u201d.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peeblesshirenews.com\/news\/25432539.council-resource-secures-1-3-million-in-need-families\/?ref=ial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Council resource secures \u00a31.3 million for in-need families<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The South of Scotland MSP is\u00a0due to appear at Dumfries Sheriff Court at a later date. He has strenuously denied\u00a0the charges.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Smyth was arrested following a raid on his Dumfries home on August 5.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Since then, it has also been confirmed that Holyrood&#8217;s cr\u00e8che and education centre were searched by police alongside all toilets and changing rooms. No covert devices were found.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In a statement on Friday, Mr Smyth said the allegations were \u201can utter shock\u201d and that the publication of his home address by police had forced him to move out. He stressed that he was cooperating fully with the investigation but could not respond to specific claims.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;The speculation, and the recent decision by the police to publicly release details of their ongoing inquiries along with my home address has been devastating and has taken a serious toll on my health.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peeblesshirenews.com\/news\/25431684.notice-board-borders-town-centre-vandalised\/?ref=ial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Notice board in Borders town centre vandalised<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;After my address was published with no warning to my family, I felt I had no choice but to move away to protect them.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;That has also meant losing the local NHS critical support I had been receiving for the past few weeks, making an already difficult time even more distressing.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I would therefore ask that the privacy of myself, but above all my family and friends, is respected while this matter is resolved. Having this hanging over them is especially overwhelming.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colin Smyth stood down as chair of\u00a0Holyrood&#8217;s influential\u00a0Economy and Fair Work Committee on Monday evening.\u00a0 It comes after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-395990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115143424248512697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}