Convicted witches will not be pardoned

[icymist]

PERTHSHIRE’S witches were denied a posthumous pardon after MSPs rejected a petition made by a man looking for justice for those convicted under witchcraft laws.

The hunt for supposed witches — whose alleged crimes were sometimes no more heinous than being near when someone got sick — took the lives of thousands of men and women across Scotland over centuries.

But Ewan Irvine, acting on behalf of Full Moon Investigations, asked Holyrood to back his efforts to have all persons convicted of crimes under witchcraft legislation pardoned. However, the petitions committee unanimously knocked back the request, with one MSP stating that they had “better things to talk about.”

SNP member Nigel Don said: “It’s an interesting lesson in history, but it has no purpose whatsoever and I would like to close it now.”

The 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed by the government in 1951.

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