A genuine hero for our times, Robbie the Pict, who virtually single-handedly won the battle of the Skye Bridge tolls, is in action again. He is fighting to have the criminal records purged of those convicted for refusing to pay the tolls during the long and successful fight to prove their essential illegality.

The 61-year-old campaigner, under a 300-year-old law, appealed to the Queen to consider what he described as ‘a miscarriage of justice’. Getting no action on that front, he has turned to Prince Charles for help in having the protesters’ convictions overturned. Always an independent, Robbie the Pict asked for the high profile help he feels might be valuable but in doing so warned the heir to the throne that: ‘some of us still have claymores from Culloden’.

A highly resourceful and effective campaigner, Robbie the Pict claimed that the crucial documents agreeing the contractual arrangements between the then Scottish administration and the bridge’s concessionaires, Skye Bridge Ltd had never been properly signed.

The document in question is officially entitled the ‘assignation statement’. Its function was to assign the Secretary of State’s right to collect tolls to the Skye Bridge Company. Government obfuscation on the subject of Robbie the PIct’s claim was shattered when The Herald newspaper used Freedom of Information to get access to official correspondence from 1995. Papers released to The Herald showed that the Crown Office was aware that the ‘assignation statement’ was not ‘a final document’, even before they allowed 130 protesters to be convicted over non-payment of tolls.

The Skye Bridge was built under one of the last of the now discredited conservative-initiated Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) and was inherited by the devolved Scottish administration from the last UK Conservative Government. Islanders welcomed the bridge but refused to pay the tolls whose legality they never accepted.

At one point, the campaign group SKAT (Skye and Kyle Against the Tolls) was prepared to renew its campaign of non-payment as a protest against the the Scottish Executive’s failure to implement an agreement to remove the tolls.

At this stage the responsible local authority, Highland Regional Council, announced (7 May 2004) that it was itself seeking a judicial review of the Executive’s paralysis.  Its challenge rested on the argument that the tolls were to be charged only for as long as it took to repay the cost of building the bridge. By May 2004, Highland Council argued, this target had already been exceeded by £4 million.

On 21st December 2004 the Scottish Executive abolished the tolls. (For those interested in the story and the SKAT campagn in whcih Robbie the Pict was a prominent player, the BBC published a useful timeline account on the day the tolls came off. The Wikipedia entry on the matter is also extremely informative on the legality of the state’s case and on the financial facts surrouding it.)

In 2008, Robbie the Pict – a name legalised by deed poll – was clocked doing 84mph on the A74 in Dumfries. When he appeared at Edinburgh’s Court of Justiciary Appeal he claimed that speed cameras were illegal because they were not approved according to the letter of the law.

His challenge was suspended while lawyers carried out further research into the rules. Still on form. Robbie the Pict could yet win another big battle for the put-upon general public.

Footnote: Robbie the PIct’s name relates to his action in 1977 in declaring an acre of land on the Isle of Skye to be The Pictish Free State and renouncing his UK citizenship. The Pictish Free State now extends to 1,000 acres with land donated by supporters.

The photograph of the Skye Bridge above is by Hartmut Josi Bennöhr and licensed under Wikipedia Commons.