Pub landord laid to rest after emotional tribute by family

A FATHER-of-two who was found dead outside his pub was said to have “enough friends to fill a football stadium but not enough enemies to fill a phone box” at an emotional funeral today (Tue).

Steven Curran, 47, was discovered lying behind the Dolphin Inn at Whitecraig, East Lothian, at around 2am on Thursday 23 October.

A police investigation into his death concluded had been murdered.

Yesterday, it was the turn for emotional mourners to pack into Mortonhall Crematorium Main Chapel in Edinburgh to pay their respects to a man who was “taken too soon”.

RAF cargo plane collides with deer on runway

By Michael MacLeod

AN RAF cargo plane hit a pair of deer as it came into land at RAF Kinloss.

Parts of the propeller were smashed off as the SAAB-Scania aircraft moved along the air base runway at nearly 60mph.

Air accident investigators revealed how the 33 year-old pilot tried to brake hard but failed to avoid the wild animals.

Bullet Found After “Warning Shot” At House

By Michael MacLeod and Shaun Milne

A BULLET recovered by police at the scene of a drive by shooting could hold vital clues in tracking down who was behind the incident.

Detectives are probing the shot fired at an address in Dalkeith, Midlothian, at around 11.25pm on Wednesday.

Damage caused by the bullet could be seen at the home of George Rae, 39, who police sources say was also the target of recent threats made at the start of the month.

The blast left his neighbours in Woodburn Avenue shocked, with many last night saying a feud had been bubbling under for some time.

Breakthrough as Suzanne Pilley hunt becomes a murder probe

By Shaun Milne, Cara Sulieman & Michael MacLeod

DETECTIVES probing the disappearance of Edinburgh bookkeeper Suzanne Pilley fear she is dead.

Senior officers broke the news to her devastated parents Robert and Sylvia that the hunt for their daughter had been upgraded to a murder inquiry before going public about the switch today (Wednesday).

But they said bravely: “Until we hear otherwise, we will always hope for some positive news.”

The move came after officers were handed CCTV footage which they say shows Suzanne DID arrive outside her work.

But what happened thereafter remains a mystery.

Police launch murder investigation over ‘brutal’ Musselburgh attack

By Oliver Farrimond

POLICE have launched a full murder investigation after a Musselburgh man was stabbed to death in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Dennis Parker, 27, was stabbed through the heart by two masked attackers in what is believed to be a row over drug debts.

Parker, from Eskside West in Musselburgh, was in his flat with a male friend when two men wearing balaclavas burst in and attacked the pair.

Parker’s friend was also injured in the attack but stumbled outside to call for help shortly after 1am on Saturday morning.

Bank boss swindled cash from dead man, disabled pensioners and her own neighbour

By Michael MacLeod

A SHAMELESS bank manager took over £36,000 from customers including a dead man, a disabled elderly couple and one of her own neighbours.

Former Lloyds TSB boss Arlene Wales, 42, told her victims she would help them with their finances, only to embezzle massive sums of cash behind their backs.

She used the money to live a lifestyle she couldn’t afford, while hiding behind a £90,000 credit card debt.

In a bid to solve her own personal financial disaster she targeted five customers at the Dalkeith, Midlothian, bank branch.

But her scheme was snared when the daughter of the late George Clarke was arranging his estate and noticed cash had gone missing.

Serving police officer Anna Wong guilty of data crime

By Paul Thornton

A POLICEWOMAN is facing a fine of up to £5,000 after she illegally accessed people’s data using a police computer.

Anna Wong, 26, was suspended by Lothian and Borders Police after they caught her using intelligence databases to look-up people she knew.

SHAMED: Anna Wong

Wong – originally from Hong Kong – used the Scottish Intelligence Database and the Lothian and Borders Operational Support System to obtain personal details of a number of Chinese people living in Scotland.

The officer was suspended after it emerged Wong was accessing the details at the capital’s St Leonards Police Station between March 2006 and June 2007.

Charged

Wong was charged with 54 breaches of the Data Protection Act and later admitted 28 of the charges at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

She insists she did not pass the information on to anyone else but could face a maximum £5,000 fine.

Fiscal depute Beverley Adam said Wong had been at level nine on the scale of access privileges within the force – the lowest rating with access to the information – when she used the databases.

Her solicitor, David O’Hagan, said Wong had begun tapping into the database to look-up outstanding cases against two people she knew. However, Mr O’Hagan said, because of the difficulties in recording Chinese names on the computers, Wong simply entered “Chinese” as a search term and began accessing others in the Chinese community to investigate possible links.