Former Rangers administrator sues top Scottish law chiefs for £9m over damage to damage to his reputation as financial professional

Insolvency practitioner David Whitehouse, 51, is bringing his claim against Police Scotland boss Philip Gormley and Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC, saying that the actions of police and prosecutors resulted in him suffering damage to his reputation of being a first class financial professional.

The Cheshire businessman says that his arrest caused him to suffer a £1.75 million loss to his earnings, claiming that between 2009 to 2014 his gross earnings averaged £988,000 per year but that he only made £408,400 in 2015 and £401,733 in 2016.

His lawyers claim he lost earnings because he lost his licence to operate as an insolvency practitioner and he had lost out on bonuses.

Mr Whitehouse also claims that his arrest caused knock-on effects in other part of his life.

An examples of this, he claims, was that his insurers declined to renew his home insurance following his time in police custody, during which a senior anti-terrorist police officer told him that his life and home were at risk.

Mr Whitehouse and his colleague Paul Clark worked for Duff & Phelps and were appointed as administrators of the club in February 2012.

They were detained in November 2014 and charged by police investigating businessman Craig Whyte’s takeover of the club three years previously.

Charges against the two men were later dropped following a court hearing before judge Lord Bannatyne in June 2016.

But Mr Whitehouse now claims that his detention by police officers who were investigating the Whyte takeover was “wrongful” and his lawyers claim that their client was “unlawfully detained” by detectives.

Yesterday, lawyers acting for Mr Whitehouse appeared during a procedural hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

They claim that throughout the period of detention there was no reasonable grounds to suspect that Mr Whitehouse had broken the law and that prosecutors issued an indictment against Mr Whitehouse without any “evidential basis”.

Mr Whitehouse also claims that police obtained evidence without following proper legal procedure.

According to reports, Mr Whitehouse’s colleague Paul Clark and fellow administrator David Grier also plan to sue the Chief Constable and Lord Advocate.

The chief constable and the Lord Advocate claim that police and prosecutors acted in accordance with correct legal procedure.

They claim that Mr Whitehouse’s human rights were not breached and that he did not suffer any loss or injury as a consequence of the actions taken by the police and prosecutors.

They also believe the case should be dismissed because the Lord Advocate is exempt from civil action from people who were the subject of a legal investigation.