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Son of JP hid drug stash in basement

Giles Elgood

Daily Record

Monday 15 Nov 1999


THE son of a leading councillor yesterday admitted selling drugs from
the family home.

Iain Pringle, 24, was arrested after detectives found pounds 2000
worth of cannabis in a raid on the house. At Edinburgh Sheriff Court,
Pringle's father, Mike, sat in the public gallery looking shocked and
upset. When officers swooped in March this year, the Liberal Democrat
city councillor thought they wanted him to sign a warrant in his other
role as a Justice of the Peace.

Yesterday, sentence on his son was deferred for reports after he
admitted supplying a controlled drug from the house during February
and March of this year.

The 24-year-old still lives in the basement apartment of the large
terraced house he shares with his father and mother Margaret in
Edinburgh's Morningside.

Last night, Pringle's parents said they would do all they could to
help him. Speaking at the family home, Mike Pringle said: "As a family
we still support our son and, as I've said previously, the law will
take its course."

The councillor declined to comment further before sentence had been
passed. At the time of the raid, he spoke of his shock at seeing his
son arrested. He said: "I was gobsmacked when I realised they wanted
to search the premises. "They looked in the basement where my son
lives and did not search any other part of the house. "My wife and I
were as shocked as anyone else by this discovery." But he praised the
officers who carried out the raid.

He said: "The conduct of the police officers at our home was exemplary
and I have full confidence in the professionalism of those who are now
handling the matter."

Last week, Pringle, a member of Lothian and Borders Police Board,
stepped down from a board investigation into the force's deputy chief
constable Tom Wood amid allegations he had become close friends with
the officer following his son's arrest.

Pringle unsuccessfully fought the Edinburgh South seat for the Liberal
Democrats during May's Scottish Parliament elections.

He was also number two behind David Steel on the party's top-up list
of candidates for the Lothians but missed out after Lord Steel took
the only place.

 

 

 

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