Labour candidate ‘was sent sectarian messages’

Lothian and Borders police are studying offensive text messages received by Dunfermline and West Fife candidate Thomas Docherty

Article in The Sunday Times 9th Aug 09

Police are investigating allegations that a Scottish Labour candidate was subjected to sectarian abuse by text message.

Lothian and Borders police are studying text messages received by Thomas Docherty, who will contest Dunfermline and West Fife in the general election.

The messages, which contained a lyric from the so-called Famine song, were allegedly sent from a mobile telephone number belonging to Mark Cummings, a lobbyist. His clients have included Premier Property Group, a firm owned by David Murray, the Rangers chairman.

Two weeks ago, Docherty, a Catholic, received a message repeating a line from the Famine song which has been banned at Rangers’ Ibrox ground, and which was recently ruled by Scottish law lords to be racist. The song pillories people of Irish descent whose ancestors came to Britain to escape the potato famine which began in 1845.

The message to Docherty allegedly read: “The famine is over. Why don’t you go home? FTP.” FTP is commonly used as an abbreviation for the sectarian phrase F*** The Pope.

It is alleged that when Docherty texted the sender to check whether the message was intended for him, he received the reply: “Yes, because you are one of them.”

As a Labour candidate, Docherty is campaigning against a proposed major housing development in Dunfermline which Cummings’s firm, Edinburgh-based Invicta Public Affairs, is lobbying for.

In a statement, Cummings, director of Invicta, said: “I am aware of the matter as it has been brought to my attention. I am responding properly on a voluntary basis with the relevant authorities.

“This is a private matter that relates to me in a personal capacity only. It in no way relates to any commercial relationships that I have.”

A police spokesman said: “Police are investigating after a 34-year-old male received an offensive text message of sectarian nature.”

Docherty was unavailable for comment.