John Urquhart Cameron

Dr John Cameron, physicist and former Church of Scotland minister

John Urquhart Cameron (born 10 June 1943) is a distinguished academic and social reformer and a former parish minister of the Church of Scotland. Following a request in 2003 by Nelson Mandela, Dr Cameron conducted a scientific examination of the forensic evidence which convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and produced a highly critical report on the Lockerbie bombing trial.

Biography

Cameron was born in Dundee, Scotland, and was educated at Falkirk High School and at Pomona College in California, St Andrews University and Edinburgh University. He holds a PhD in both Physics and Theology.

During his time in California he attended lectures given at Caltech by the great theoretical Physicist Richard Feynman. The Nobel Laureate's third wife, Gwyneth Howarth, was a distant relative of Cameron and the two men became friends, remaining close until Feynman's death in 1989. Cameron and another friend and associate of Feynman, Freeman Dyson, later became leading critics of the "Global Warming" hypothesis popularised by former US vice-president Al Gore.

Cameron was an outstanding athlete and was selected for the Scottish international athletics team while he was still at school and later gained one of the first American sports scholarships awarded to a Scottish runner. After the Tokyo Olympics he turned to golf, playing for St Andrews University in the 1960s and Edinburgh University in the 1970s before becoming a member of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.

Following his time with GlaxoSmithKline in London he entered the Church of Scotland ministry. He was parish minister of Broughty Ferry for thirty five years during which time he also taught religious studies at the High School of Dundee. At other times during his career he lectured in Physics and Mathematics at Napier University, Dundee University and Abertay University.

A member of a distinguished extended family of journalists which included James Cameron he wrote articles for The Courier, The Scotsman, The Good Ski Guide, The Good Holiday Magazine and The Scottish Review. He was also a senior chaplain for many years in the Royal Naval Reserve and later padre to the Black Watch.

He is best known as the leading social reformer among the Scottish clergy and has often collaborated with the Very Rev Professor Iain Torrance of Princeton University to address some of the most controversial topics of the day. He has been a powerful advocate and supporter of same-sex marriage, ordination of gay clergy, the right to physician assisted suicide, women’s right to choose and the decriminalisation of narcotics.

Lockerbie bombing

Dr John Cameron joined Professor Iain Torrance and Dr Jim Swire to launch the initial campaign for the retrial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi the Libyan controversially convicted of the Lockerbie Bombing. Dr Cameron's highly critical report of the scientific and forensic evidence presented at the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands marked a water-shed in the Scottish public's attitude to Megrahi. Dr Cameron wrote in The Scottish Review:

"I first became involved in the Lockerbie case when Nelson Mandela asked the Church of Scotland to support his efforts to have Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction overturned.

"As an experienced lawyer, Mandela studied the transcripts and decided there had been a miscarriage of justice, pointing especially to serious problems with the forensic evidence. I was the only research physicist among the clergy and was the obvious person to review the evidence to produce a technical report which might be understood by the Kirk.

"Scientists always select the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions to eliminate complicated constructions and keep theories grounded in the laws of science. This is 'Occam's razor' and from the outset the theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe seemed quite mad. I contacted everyone I knew in aviation and they all were of the opinion it was placed on board at the notoriously insecure Heathrow and that the trigger had to be barometric.

"It is therefore unfortunate that it would be difficult to find three more disreputable practitioners than Thurman, Hayes and Feraday. It should be a matter of deep concern that Megrahi is the only man convicted on the evidence of these three individuals whose conviction was not reversed on appeal.

"There is also no credible evidence that the clothes from Tony Gauci’s shop found among the Lockerbie wreckage were really bought on the day stated in the trial. The sale seemed much more likely to have happened on a day when Abu Talb was on Malta and Megrahi definitely was not. It is also known that when the Swedish police arrested Abu Talb for a different terrorist offence they found some of the same batch of clothing in his flat in Uppsala. No explanation for that was forthcoming at the trial.

"Finally, the behaviour of the chief prosecutor Colin Boyd, both in concealing the nefarious activity of his forensic scientists and withholding essential evidence from the defence, is utterly reprehensible. Together with lack of moral fibre shown by Lord Cullen and the Court of Criminal Appeal it has left a permanent stain on the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system."

Family

Dr Cameron met and married the Anglo-Swedish skier Jill Sjoberg when he was a marketing executive with GlaxoSmithKline in London, and they have a daughter Clare and a son Alex.

External links

• "Scottish Who's Who" edited by Martin Frost.
• "Legalise assisted suicide, Kirk minister says." by Melanie Read in The Times, published 25 November 2009.
• Gay clergy discrimination absolutely illegal: Rev John Cameron. by David Lord in the Courier, published 29 April 2011.
• [Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ. XI. Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd. 2000. ISBN 0-567-08750-6]

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