The defamation trial against former St Mirren director Alan Wardrop is currently underway at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Mr Wardrop is being sued by Jim Gillespie and Mark MacMillan after he raised concerns over their conduct as Kibble’s representatives on the board at St Mirren.
The Paisley man claimed, in the summer of 2023, that the pair had acted dishonestly regarding an outline application to build a children’s welfare centre in Paisley.
He alleged Mr Gillespie and Mr MacMillan were using Kibblcite’s position as a shareholder in the club to push through plans for the wellbeing centre on land owned by St Mirren and later lying about it.
The children’s charity has, however, repeatedly maintained that a Scottish Government funding application wrongly cited the land north of the stadium as the planned location of the proposed building.
The area was, Kibble maintains, shaded in on a map incorrectly by Renfrewshire Council – something the local authority denies.
As part of the court action, both men are seeking a public retraction, apology and substantial damages from Mr Wardrop, as well as removal of the false allegations online.
Mr Wardrop had made the claims against the Kibble chiefs during his campaign for a seat on the board of the St Mirren Independent Supporters’ Association (SMiSA) in 2023.
During that campaign, he unsuccessfully called for Mr Gillespie, the current vice-chairman of St Mirren and CEO of Kibble and Mr MacMillan, director of corporate services at Kibble, to be removed from the club’s board.
In a statement released when the defamation case was lodged with the Court of Session in July 2023, Mr Gillespie said Mr Wardrop’s behaviour left the pair with “no choice” but to take legal action.
Mr MacMillan said at the time: “The entire premise of Mr Wardrop’s attacks on us is simply false. Despite this, he undertook a sustained, highly public and defamatory campaign against us in the national media and we have now been forced to take action to protect our reputations and to put the record straight.”
Both men are senior figures in Kibble which purchased a 27.5 per cent shareholding in St Mirren in 2020.
In the 18 months since the defamation case was launched OSCR has confirmed it has an open inquiry into Kibble. The Scottish charity regulator confirmed yesterday that it is continuing its inquires.
A series of inconsistencies had been brought to its attention, including a failed funding application.
The application sought £2.65 million from the Scottish Government’s regeneration capital grant fund (RCGF) in order to build a £13.4m wellbeing centre in Ferguslie Park. But that application – submitted with Renfrewshire Council in 2022 – had substantive inaccuracies.
Officials at OSCR said a host of information has been “risk assessed” in line with its procedures and confirmed it has since launched an inquiry.
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