Ex-North Lanarkshire Council Leader Jordan Linden Convicted of Sexual Assault

Jordan Linden, who stepped down as leader of North Lanarkshire Council in 2022 after allegations surfaced, was convicted in March following a seven-day trial.

He was found not guilty of a sixth charge of sexual assault. The court also acquitted him of five other charges of stalking and sexual communication.

Linden, who also chaired the Scottish Youth Parliament, had denied all charges. He claimed the incidents either did not occur or were consensual.

He resigned from the council post a few weeks after the allegations emerged and was arrested in 2024.

The court heard testimony from an SNP party official. The man, who was 18 at the time, said Linden locked him in a bathroom and tried to make him urinate while watching. The incident happened after a Dundee Pride parade, when Linden was very drunk and being very handsy with people.

"He kept sitting on me, putting his hands near my crotch, putting his hands down my top," the man told the court.

One man who joined the Scottish Youth Parliament as a teenager at the same time as Linden described his touching of the face, cheek or neck as relentless.

Another man recalled a traumatic evening in 2018 at Linden's flat in Bellshill. They had been drinking, and he vomited in disgust after waking to find Linden performing a sex act on him.

BBC Scotland News spoke to one witness whose evidence was heard at the trial but did not form one of the charges. The man, called James here, was a teenager when he met Linden in 2015 while campaigning for the SNP.

James said Linden was very overly friendly from the start. Others in the party had warned him to keep his distance.

During the trial, James testified that Linden climbed into his bed on an overseas trip with the SNP youth wing Young Scots for Independence and tried to kiss him.

"I sort of shrugged it off and tried to ignore it the next day," he told BBC Scotland News.

Linden acted as if nothing had happened. James tried to stay away from him for the rest of the trip.

"It wasn't until a couple of years later, when I saw a number of the other individuals coming forward and I was reading the instances that happened with them, that I decided to speak out. It was nearly five or six years later," James said.

He first tried to handle the matter through the SNP but went to police after the party tried to avoid the situation.

"Having to relive it numerous times over the last 10 years, it's very chilling, but getting this point where there's justice being served, it's a good feeling."