QC Findlay fights bigotry claim

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POPE GAG WAS NOT OFFENSIVE TO CATHOLICS

TOP lawyer Donald Findlay yesterday denied deliberately offending Roman Catholics with a joke about the Pope.

The QC said that if he believed the gag would cause upset then he would have dropped it a long time ago.

But he offered an "unreserved apology" to two members of the public who complained to the Faculty of Advocates.

One of them claimed Findlay had behaved like an "uncouth moron" and that booting him out of the profession should be considered.

Findlay - more used to crossexamining witnesses - was giving evidence to a faculty tribunal where he is accused of bringing the profession into disrepute.

In 1999, he was fined £3500 by them after being caught on video singing sectarian songs at a Rangers supporters' bash.

That resulted in him having to quit as vice-chairman of the club.

The latest incident happened in May 2005 at a Rangers supporters' club dinner in Larne, Northern Ireland, where Ibrox greats Willie Henderson and Andy Goramalso spoke.

A newspaper reported that Findlay had joked: "It's very smoky in here tonight. Has another f****** Pope died?"

But Findlay told the tribunal in Edinburgh that he had lit his pipe, blown some smoke about and cracked: "For f*** sake, has another Pope died?"

He said yesterday: "It was not meant to be offensive to anybody. I, of all people, would not have done that because it would not be acceptable for me to deliberately offend Catholics.

"I have many friends and colleagues who are Catholics apart from anything else.

"Other than the complainers, not a single person, be they Celtic supporters, Roman Catholics or both, has made any complaint to me. What has been said to me has been universally to the opposite effect."

The joke was cracked about a month after Pope John Paul II died but Findlay, who is an atheist, dismissed any notion that it was aimed at him.

He said: "The Pope isn't the centre of the gag ... it is the practice of blowing smoke out of a chimney.

"I don't believe it is offensive to Catholics. If I felt it was, I would have dropped it a long, long time ago.

"It is unrealistic that members of faculty cannot tell jokes using swear words. I have heard swear words used at faculty functions."

He slammed claims in the news paper that he had launched "foul-mouth sectarian tirades" as being "gross and appalling exaggeration".

But one of the complainers, retired head teacher Hugh Lynch, 65, said the joke about the Pope and another about a nun were "blatantly sectarian and deeply offensive to Roman Catholics".

Mr Lynch, who was not at the dinner, said: "Jack McConnell made overtures to deal with the sectarianism and here is a member of an august body using offensive and derogatory language in relation to the Catholic Church.

"If I had done this as a teacher, I would have been run out of the job."

Mr Lynch, from Larbert, Stirlingshire, also said that Findlay should not have cracked the joke in Northern Ireland.

He said the advocate was wrong to poke fun at a time when people were mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.

Mr Lynch said: "He should not be doing this at the expense of Catholics, given the track record he has."

The tribunal, who could fine Findlay or dismiss him from the faculty, will give their decision at a later date.

By Gordon Mcilwraith | 19 June 2007

Findlay: Pope joke was not offensive

The two faces of Donald Findlay, QC