Argyll-resident QC of ‘Stone of Destiny Four’ in legal challenge to RBS on Wednesday in Oban

Ian Hamilton QC, from North Connel in Argyll, is engaged in a legal dispute with the Royal Bank of Scotland. Mr Hamilton has taken a case against the bank at Oban Small Claims Court. He aims to recover the £1,282 cost of RBS shares that he bought in June – a time when he says the bank was technically insolvent. His case therefore rests on the presumption that RBS ‘fraudulently’ sold him the shares by concealing its insolvency.

In June 2008 RBS invited its shareholders to invest in a rights issue. Mr Hamilton’s wife received the invitation and he, on her behalf, bought around 640 shares at £2 each. they currently stand at 21.8 pence per share.

Mr Hamilton claims that RBS induced him make this investment ‘by concealing the true state of their finances’. In an alternative claim, he alleges the bank was ‘negligent in representing themselves as solvent at all material times when in fact they were insolvent’.

Were Mr Hamilton to win this case it would not set a precedent but it would offer encouragement and hope to other small shareholders to take the same route to recover their failed investment.

This has led RBS to take a legal step designed to frighten Mr Hamilton into dropping his case. It has written to Sherrif Court Clerk in Oban, asking that Mr Hamilton’s case be moved from the Small Claims Court to the higher Sherriff Court. The bank’s strategy is based on the Small Claims Court’s limit of £200 on costs payable. This limit does not apply to cases heard in the higher court.

Mr Hamilton says that, should the court agree to the RBS request and should he lose his case at that level, the RBS costs which he would then be required to pay would bankrupt him.

Oban Sheriff Court will, this Wednesday (18th February), hear Mr Hamilton and the RBS present their respective arguments on which court should hear the case.

Mr Hamilton was one of the now legendary gang of four students – along with Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan Stuart – whose ingenuity saw them seize the Stone of Destiny from Westminister Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. Mr Hamilton has written on the matter: No Stone Unturned: The Story of the Stone of Destiny (published in 1952 by Victor Gollancz and by Funk and Wagnalls; and The Taking of the Stone of Destiny (a modern reprint by Seven Hills Book Distributors pubished in 1992)