Source: The Scotsman, Edinburgh, UK (http://www.scotsman.com)
Contact: Letters_ts@scotsman.com

Ecstasy policeman faces jail
Aberdeen officer supplied tablets to journalist and boasted of being
'tripping' while on duty IAIN LUNDY

A SCOTTISH police officer faces jail after being convicted of supplying
ecstasy tablets to an undercover journalist.

A jury at Aberdeen Sheriff Court took almost an hour yesterday to find
Euan Ranson guilty of the charge by a majority 105 verdict.

As the verdict was read out, Ranson, 26, looked towards the roof of the
court building. He appeared visibly shaken and fought back tears.

Sheriff David Kelbie told Ranson, an officer with Grampian Police: "This
is a very serious offence which has been committed by a serving police
officer. I cannot imagine imposing anything other than a custodial
sentence."

During the twoday trial, Ranson's defence counsel had maintained that
he had been tricked and deceived by journalists for the Sunday Mail.

In a statement made to police colleagues after the paper exposed him as
a drug dealer, Ranson insisted he had been duped, adding: "I am not
involved in drugs nor am I a drug dealer."

But he admitted handing over seven ecstasy tablets to a journalist,
Andrew Gold, in the bar of Aberdeen's Caledonian Thistle Hotel.

However, he claimed that the drugs had been bought by another man in an
Aberdeen bar.

Mr Gold, 37, told the court that he and a fellow journalist, John Nairn,
had posed as car dealers and had asked Ranson if he could get drugs for
them.

Mr Gold said he had difficulty believing that Ranson was a police
officer because of his attitude and some of the comments he had made.

Ranson, he said, had told the journalists that he had driven a police
panda car while still "tripping" on acid.

He added: "He said that instead of the blue flashing lights, he saw pink
flashing lights. I thought it was a joke."

Ranson and another man left the hotel and returned about 35 minutes
later, at which point Ranson put the ecstasy tablets and four 20 notes
into Mr Gold's top pocket.

Mr Nairn, 51, admitted that he had posed as a car dealer and lied to
Ranson, but claimed his actions were in the public interest.

He denied a suggestion by the defence counsel Murdo McLeod that he was
skilled as a liar, but agreed that he did occasionally lie if he felt it
was a matter of public interest.

The two reporters were accompanied in the hotel bar by Ronald Anderson,
48, a photographer who posed as a tourist and did not communicate with
them in any way.

Mr Anderson told the court he had a map and a guide book and was wearing
a flat cap "like someone who is motoring round the north of Scotland".

The others showed Ranson and Mr Gold leaning over a table in the bar,
Ranson and others pictured beside a statue of Robert Burns outside the
hotel, Ranson with Mr Gold and Mr Nairn, and Mr Gold holding ecstasy
tablets in his hand.

After the journalists had been given the tablets, which cost them 120,
they took them back to the newspaper office in Glasgow.

The paper's deputy news editor, Alan Crow, said he split them up,
putting threeandahalf tablets into a white envelope and the same into
a brown envelope.

One envelope was hidden in a pencil case in a locked drawer of a secure
interview room in the office and the other was taken to Glasgow
University's forensic science laboratory for analysis.

The scientist who examined them, Dr Robert Anderson, confirmed that they
contained ecstasy.

Ranson, who lives in Cairn Park, Cults, Aberdeen, chose not to give
evidence in his own defence.

In his legal directions to the jury, Sheriff Kelbie told the eight women
and seven men that they had a "big decision" to make.

It was, he said, a balancing act between protection of individual
liberty and the bringing to justice of drug dealers, particularly when
that offence was carried out by a police officer.

Ranson, whose father, Ted, sat in court throughout the trial, was
remanded in custody until 28 August for sentencing.

A spokeswoman for Grampian Police said the matter would be referred to
the force's deputy chief constable for misconduct proceedings. Ranson
has been suspended since last September.