Strathclyde Police has said that contrary to a report in The Daily Telegraph the force is continuing to investigate allegations that Channel 4 correspondent Alex Thomson was physically threatened by a Scottish journalist.
The Telegraph reported the force had dropped the investigation and quoted a police source saying the allegations were ‘laughable”.
But Strathclyde Police has since confirmed its investigation is ongoing and Channel 4 said it was ‘baffled’by reports to the contrary.
Thomson arrived in Glasgow earlier this month to investigate the financial affairs of Rangers FC after the club entered administration.
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Writing on his blog, Thomson said some football journalists in the region were ‘too lazy, sycophantic and incapable of asking awkward questions’over Rangers’ financial affairs.
He wrote: ‘I’d expected the paranoia, insults, spin etc – hey – this is ‘fitba’ after all and I welcome it good, bad and ugly, from fans within and without Glasgow.
‘Indeed I’ve gone out and asked for it. What I didn’t expect were the insults (and in at least one case a direct physical threat) not from fans but from Scottish journalists.
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‘Sarajevo, Mogadishu, Kabul, Islamabad, Tripoli, Baghdad…I could bore you with more – in none of these places have I ever got this interesting reaction from local journalists.
‘Only in Glasgow. So something’s up. Something’s different. Something about asking questions about RFC clearly angers some in the Glasgow media in a way I’ve never seen in 25 years of global reporting.”
A spokesperson for Channel 4 News said:”Strathclyde Police have confirmed to us today that the investigation into threats made to one of our journalists is ongoing. We were baffled to see inaccurate, unsubstantiated reports that suggested otherwise, and are pleased to see these stories now being retracted.
“We take threats to our journalists incredibly seriously and are satisfied that Strathclyde Police are doing the same.”
The Telegraph has now removed claims that the case has been dropped from its website.
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