The convoy of aid trucks was still labouring down the tight mountain passes towards Sarajevo when the shooting started.
Sudden bursts of lethal gunfire blitzed the column of battered old lorries as they hurried for the shelter of the besieged city walls.
If David Hamilton had paused for a moment, he may have questioned the sanity of swapping a dull but cushy job in sales for the terrifying chaos of a warzone.
With bullets flying during the worst of the Bosnian conflict in the mid-1990s, there was little time to think – still less to change course: ‘No, we just kept driving,’ he recalled.
‘As Sarajevo was under siege, we did a siege bust and we just got shot at with anti-aircraft guns as we went down the mountainside.’
He added: ‘The guy in front of me got shot in the chest. The truck behind me got blown off the road.
Somehow, Mr Hamilton, then a twenty-something volunteer, survived this extraordinarily dangerous mission unscathed, physically at least. ‘I probably used up a few of my nine lives there,’ he admits with a disarming chuckle.
Running towards danger is often taken as a sign of madness but Bosnia seems only to have fired the starting gun on a life under fire. Now 54, his colourful career has since taken him from frontline policing, through stints as a union official, community councillor and – unlikely as it sounds – a film and TV extra, to his present post as Scotland’s powerful transparency watchdog, where he is engaged in several well-publicised battles against the SNP’s obsession with secrecy.
David Hamilton policing T in the Park in 2013
As Scotland’s Information Commissioner (SIC), Mr Hamilton believes Scotland is living through a profound crisis of trust – and his office has become a barometer of public scepticism.
Appeals to the SIC surged by 83 per cent last year, jumping from the usual 500 to 600 cases to more than 1,000 according to the body’s latest annual report.
That spiralling caseload has placed an ‘unsustainable strain’ on his staff of 15 and tiny budget of less than £3million.
In the relative calm of the SIC’s St Andrews headquarters, he considers what is driving it. Partly, he says, people no longer take anything at face value: ‘Every single video now people are thinking, “Is this AI-generated?”’
But the same suspicion extends far beyond manipulated images and online misinformation.
‘People don’t trust politicians,’ he said. ‘And it’s not even just politicians, it’s public authorities.’
He added: ‘Distrust is on the increase and has probably been as bad as I’ve ever seen it and experienced it, and it’s happened so rapidly.’
Mr Hamilton has a particular beef with politicians right now and, as one of the few public figures prepared to stand up to power, he is not letting anyone off the hook.
His lawyers have accused the Scottish Government of seeking to undermine transparency law and relegate him to a toothless supervisory role in a legal battle over evidence submitted to the investigation into Nicola Sturgeon’s dealings with Alex Salmond.
The case was heard by the Court of Session on Tuesday, with judges reserving their decision.
And while he cannot discuss the case at present, he is clearly exasperated by the length and cost of the legal wrangling, questioning whether success can even be defined when cases ‘keep going and going and going’.
His concern is less about Ms Sturgeon herself than the broader principle of accountability, arguing that some decisions, particularly those involving the Crown Office, sit beyond meaningful independent scrutiny. ‘I think that’s wrong,’ he said, ‘entirely wrong.’
The issue, he argues, is not about stoking political embarrassment but ensuring there is a credible way of testing whether secrecy is justified.
Now, almost exactly halfway through his six-year term in one of Scotland’s most scrutinised public roles, he remains firm in his belief that the answer to the nation’s collapsing confidence in authority is not less transparency, but more.
Mr Hamilton has gone from being a police officer to information tsar
‘As a police officer, I learned that it’s always the cover-up [that annoys the public],’ he said. ‘If people would just put their hands up and say, “Listen, yeah, I think we’ve got that wrong. We need to fix it”, that’s a bit of honesty. And that’s the bit that seems to be missing.’
What is clear is that the current Commissioner, who recently became a black belt in karate in his 50s, will not be intimidated by political power: ‘I’m not in any way in awe of politics and politicians. Not at all,’ he said, insisting he approaches such contentious transparency cases ‘without fear or favour’. Certainly, when Ruth Davidson, former Scottish Tory leader and Army Reservist, learned of his appointment, her response was telling. ‘Crikey,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t like to be a public body that attempts to monkey around when it comes to their FOI responses.
‘[David Hamilton] will be like a dog with a bone. One of those ones with the big jaws. Like a staffie or a pitbull.’
Even as a young man, this pitbull displayed a tendency to sink his teeth into a challenge.
Born into a solidly middle-class family, he left Bearsden Academy at 16 for a place at Glasgow University. At university he was involved with the world debating championships but not as a competitor – as a judge.
His younger brother Duncan (who would go on to be the youngest ever MSP at the 1999 elections) won the event in 1994.
But David was always more comfortable in the role of arbiter. Can he see a pattern here? ‘I suppose I’m still asking people to make their arguments and then I’ll make a decision,’ he conceded
Interestingly, his brother became disillusioned with politics and retrained as an advocate and is now a temporary sheriff. It must run in the family.
After graduating in 1993 in computer engineering and attending business school for a year, Mr Hamilton worked as a travelling salesman selling construction equipment.
He found it stultifying. Between sales calls one day, he heard a radio advert asking for volunteers to drive aid to war-torn Bosnia. ‘I had one of those very early car phones and called up immediately. “Can you drive a lorry?” they asked. “No”, I said, “but I’ll learn”.’ The call changed his life forever.
‘I just wanted to do it,’ he said. ‘I suppose I come from a public service background. My father was a minister, my mother was a teacher.’
Within months he was behind the wheel of a converted bread lorry running the gauntlet of the infamous stretch of road known as Sniper’s Alley to drop off his load of donations with Edinburgh Direct Aid (EDA).
‘It got a bit hairy at times,’ he said dryly, later hinting that he needed therapy to process the traumas he witnessed there.
In war-torn Bosnia Mr Hamilton drove a converted bread lorry running the gauntlet of the infamous stretch of road known as Sniper’s Alley to drop off his load of donations with Edinburgh Direct Aid (EDA)
Before he joined EDA, the charity had considered shutting down after one volunteer, Christine Witcutt, was tragically killed by a sniper’s bullet during a mercy trip to Bosnia in 1993
Before he joined Edinburgh Direct Aid (EDA), the charity had considered shutting down after one volunteer, Christine Witcutt, was tragically killed by a sniper’s bullet during a mercy trip to Bosnia in 1993.
Instead, it was agreed they carry on in her memory and when the EDA later created a day-care centre for disabled children in Sarajevo, David was introduced to Mrs Witcutt’s daughter, Julie, a nurse.
The pair hit it off and later married, having a son, Rory, and daughter, Holly. Mr Hamilton still works with EDA and has recently spent time in Ukraine, although he said: ‘When I set off for Ukraine, I never say to my wife, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine’” because that’s exactly what her mum said to her 30 years ago.’
Instead, his police training kicks in and he minimises risk through meticulous planning: ‘You’ve got to go where the danger is,’ he explained. ‘If you are too cautious about it then you don’t deliver aid and you don’t achieve anything.’ That could serve as a mantra for his entire career in public service.
Certainly, when he joined the police in 1996, running into trouble was top of the job description. One vivid memory was as part of flying squads of Scottish officers sent to help quell the summer riots of 2011 which erupted in London following the shooting of Mark Duggan and spread across England.
His squad deployed to Manchester and Nottingham to keep the peace in full riot gear. ‘We did a 70mph blue-light drive from Edinburgh – I think there were about 27 riot vans in the convoy.’
He added: ‘It was zero tolerance. Every time three people congregated in a street, six vans were there.
‘I loved the public-order stuff because of the tactics you had to learn for that.’
What he enjoyed most was decision-making under pressure, a skill he still leans heavily upon today.
He is most animated when talking about taking charge of live command roles such as coordinating a car chase.
‘It was always great fun and exciting to be in a car chase, but we needed to have somebody standing back from us saying, “No, car chase is off, too dangerous, we’re in a residential area”.
During his 27-year police career, he was a police liaison officer at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005
At the Gleneagles summit Mr Hamilton was a point of contact A-list celebrities such as Bono and Sir Bob Geldof
‘The important job was knowing when to call the chase off.’
Even during his 27-year police career, he was collecting extra responsibility, chairing the Scottish Police Federation and representing the interests of its 18,000 rank and file members. He is also chair of the local council near his Fife home.
One of his more memorable duties was as a senior police liaison officer at the Gleneagles G8 summit in July 2005.
One of just three Scottish officers quartered inside the hotel, he acted as liaison for the Foreign Office: ‘There was Putin and Blair and so on, it was extraordinary.’
He was also the point of contact for international celebrities, such as Bono, Sir Bob Geldof and Hollywood star George Clooney.
He was despatched to collect Clooney just as major anti-capitalism protests were kicking off around the hotel and the unmistakable ‘whoop-whoop’ of twin-rotored US Air Force Chinooks swooped low overhead, like a scene from a war movie.
‘I remember running up the road to the hotel, holding Clooney’s wrist and the Chinooks are coming in and landing. And I thought, “This is the most surreal thing ever”. I’ve got George Clooney and everyone’s going, “It’s George Clooney! Hello George!”
‘As soon as I got him into his press conference, I got a message saying, “George Bush has just run over one of your cops”. He’d crashed his mountain bike into him and I was the emergency planning officer that had to deal with it.’
The unlikeliest request, however, came near the event’s close after London had suffered several deadly terror bomb blasts. ‘I remember somebody saying, “Have you got a tie? Something not too dark and not too bright”. I said, “Why?” They said, “Because the Prime Minister needs it to address the world”. So I handed over my tie and Blair wore it on television.’
He tells such stories with the self-deprecating wit of a natural raconteur. Easily bored, his retirement at the rank of Inspector in March 2023 opened up an unexpected new avenue when he signed up with a casting agency as an extra.
His first role in a reboot of Whisky Galore! as ‘drunk guy at a wedding’ was, he joked, ‘method acting.’ Other roles include ‘angry office man’ in BBC’s The Rig and ‘cyclist in café’ in BBC Scotland’s The Scotts. ‘It was great fun, but the real pleasure is meeting other people: students, retirees, cancer survivors and career changers – their stories are fantastic.’
He admits with a twinkle his dream role would be James Bond, although given his fearsome reputation as a public inquisitor, perhaps Judge Dredd would be more appropriate.
He has three years left in his job, three more years of making civil servants’ knees turn to jelly, reducing health boards to quivering wrecks before he must, by law, step down.
What will he do after that? It is certain charity work will be in the mix as he and teenage daughter Holly are set to launch a charity, Hallaig, providing support to those who face hardship due to critical events, like war and natural disasters.
What about politics, like his brother? Here, his usual certainty deserts him: ‘I’d never say never, but it’s certainly not on the agenda,’ is the best he can muster.
His big concern, he adds, is with a system that struggles to attract those with real-world experience, lamenting that many are put off as ‘they don’t have a tribe.’
For now, though, he is clear-sighted on his mission. ‘We may have reached peak Hamilton, but there’s no easy glide for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do what we’ve got to do all the way to the end.’
You can hear Holyrood quaking at the sound of a pitbull’s growl.
