Ex-lawyer jailed for sending threatening letter to lord advocate

A former New York lawyer has been jailed more than three years for sending threatening letters to Scotland's most senior law officer and the wife of a former first minister.

Matthew Sylvestre, 61, sent notes to the home of Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC warning that "something nasty" could happen to her relatives if he did not get the keys to his flat and his wallet.

Sylvestre also sent emails to Nadia El-Nakla, the spouse of Humza Yousaf, in which he used offensive and threatening language causing her to fear for her and her family's safety.

He was cleared of acting in a threatening or abusive way to towards former Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Iain Livingstone and ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Sylvestre was also last month convicted of assaulting Sgt Mark Ross - then a detective constable - to his severe injury during his arrest in Perth.

At the High Court in Glasgow the judge, Lord Colbeck, told him: "Your culpability was significant with the two messages which you sent the then Lord Advocate which were sinister and implied a threat to her son and sisters.

"You are clearly an educated man but the manner you choose to engage with high profile public figures is unacceptable as was the assault on a police officer.

"Sending offensive messages while drinking is not an excuse, it is an aggravator."

The judge described the messages as "an attack on the administration of justice" and jailed him for three years and four months.

Sylvestre will also be supervised upon his release from prison for 12 months "to protect the public from serious harm."

An indefinite non-harassment order was granted in respect of El-Nakla which prohibits Sylvestre from contacting her in any way.

The court previously heard that the Lord Advocate had an envelope delivered to her home, addressed to her, on 23 April 2024.

Inside was a handwritten note stating: "Give me the keys of my flat and my wallet or something nasty will happen to Janie down south England and to your sisters."

Advocate depute Adrian Stalker told jurors in agreed evidence: "Dorothy Bain believed this to be a reference to her son Jamie and her sisters."

"The note made her feel alarmed due to the specific reference to her son, the fact that her son was then living in the south of England, the reference to her having sisters and that the envelope accurately stated her home address. None of these matters were public knowledge."

She gave the envelope and note to the police and days later a further envelope was delivered to her home, which she passed on to police without opening.

It was found to contain a further handwritten note stating: "keys flAT wallet FLAT COMPO RELEASE OR CHAINSAW".

Sylvestre's fingerprints were found on the envelopes, but he denied writing to the Lord Advocate and claimed that paper and envelopes were stolen from him while he was in prison.

El-Nakla, a Dundee councillor, was sent emails by Sylvestre between October 2023 and March the following year from an address at Victoria Place, Cullen, in Moray, and elsewhere.

One mentioned her pregnancy stating: "God willing nothing will go wrong."

El-Nakla was the only victim of Sylvestre to give evidence during the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Sylvestre said he wrote to her because he was concerned about the conflict in Gaza.

But he also wrote about other things, including the SNP' planned drug consumption rooms.

Following his conviction the jury heard that Sylvestre was previously sentenced to eight years at the High Court for a serious assault offence in 2004.

That case involved Sylvestre attacking a man at his home in Moray, shooting him in the back of the head, battering him with the butt of the gun and stabbing him with a sword.

Defence counsel Brian McConnachie KC said that his client spent some time at the high security State Hospital at Carstairs following the conviction.

The court heard in May 2024 prison officers at Perth jail carried out a search of a cell occupied by Sylvestre and another inmate.

They found a letter the former lawyer had written to First Minister John Swinney in which he claimed he had been the victim of a "personal vendetta".

McConnachie told the sentencing: "There is nothing I can say about the circumstances of the offence.

"Having heard him give his evidence, there is a degree of eccentricity in relation to him."