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TO:	Procurator Fiscal’s Office, Glasgow
FROM:	Mary Shields
SUBJECT:	Roderick Lawson

My husband of thirty years, Roderick Lawson, was remanded in HMP Lowfield this afternoon, having been charged with assault (domestic). He will appear in Glasgow Sheriff custody court on Monday and intends to plead not guilty. I am writing to explain the unusual circumstances surrounding the incident, to assure you that I am in no way his victim, and to vouch for his good character.

At approximately 2.00 p.m. this afternoon, Roderick (Roddie) and I arrived at Mansion House Square after visiting our son in Finnieston. Approximately twenty people had taken up position at our front door and began taunting us as we attempted to go inside.

Around ten male protestors had arrived on our doorstep the previous afternoon in response to the suicide of Liam Macdowall, whose life licence I supervised. Macdowall’s book, Cuck, Letters to My Dead Wife, had catapulted him to cult status among men’s rights activists. The male protestors were at my house because they blamed me for Macdowall’s death. This was due to a vicious hate campaign against me by Derek McLaverty. On his blog, The Lion’s Roar, he published many false accusations about me, the most relevant at this point that I had been having an affair with my life licensee.

My husband had arrived home from a business trip to Australia two days prior to his arrest. He was jet-lagged and very upset that I was being trolled online, and that he was being ridiculed and belittled as a cuckold, or ‘cuck’ as the men’s rights activists and the alt-right were calling him. Roddie and I have a healthy and happy relationship. I did not have an affair with Liam Macdowall. Roddie knows I did not have an affair with Liam Macdowall.

When Roddie and I returned home around 2.00 p.m. this afternoon, ten women or thereabouts had joined the protest at Mansion House Square. This was in response to a practice stand-up comedy video I emailed to my night-class teacher for feedback, which I assume she leaked without my permission.

Feeling a very high level of fear and alarm, Roddie and I phoned the police and then attempted to gain entry to our close. When the protestors blocked our entrance, I asked them for a chance to explain myself, and eventually they agreed to listen. I apologised to anyone who was upset by the very rough private-practice video I wish I’d never done and which I now understood was in bad taste and not funny. I told them how sorry I was that Liam Macdowall had taken his own life. I asked that they please give way so my husband and I could go inside. The crowd parted, but as we were about to close the door, one of the men yelled, ‘What kind of man are you?’ By the time Roddie reached the fourth step, the men were chanting ‘Cuck! Cuck! Cuck!’ and this is when the incident occurred.

I was on the step below my husband when he stopped and turned around. I placed one of my arms on the bannister and the other against the wall to prevent him from going outside, which, by this time, was what he wanted to do. Sirens added to the chaos, as well as one of the men banging on the glass while shouting: ‘She has taken your balls, man.’

Roddie had no intention of hitting me. I have attached a photograph taken by one of the agitators outside, which you can find on Twitter using #getthebitch. In this photograph you will see Roddie’s elbow is an inch away from connecting with my face, a collision which resulted in his arrest and the loss of half of one of my teeth. I can confirm that the impact occurred because I barricaded him. If you zoom in on Roddie’s face, you will see he looks angry. This is because the men are still yelling ‘cuck’ and I’m refusing to move, which is an unhealthy relationship behaviour, and which incited the men outside to bang on the door and yell, ‘Get the bitch. Get the bitch. Cuck. Cuck. Cuck!’ and which caused my husband to lunge forwards in a spontaneous manner.

I ask you to now zoom in on my face. An elbow’s about to knock my tooth out. What do you see in my expression? Do I look afraid? In instances such as this, fear is an honest measure, is it not? I have worked as a criminal-justice social worker for thirty years. Many of my clients have been guilty of hitting their wives or partners, and I have read hundreds of letters like this, which I admit I have disregarded, seeing them as evidence that the victim continues to be manipulated by their abuser. I have often wished I was a fly on the wall at the time of my service users’ offences. Well in this case I was, and you can be too if you zoom in on my face. At the moment of contact, I was not afraid of my husband. I look aggressive, do I not? I am not afraid of Roddie. He has never hit me or scared me in any way.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

MARY SHEILDS
LLB DIPSW MSW

 

NB: I have cc’d my husband’s lawyer, Adeela Hamdani, into this letter.

NB2: As an accredited user of the LC/SMI risk assessment tool, I can confirm that Mr Roderick Lawson has a MINIMAL level of risk and need factors in relation to offending.