Porter quits 5-star hotel while stealing £7,000 of booze

By Michael MacLeod

A NIGHT porter stole 15 bottles of booze worth over £7,000 from a five-star hotel shortly before handing in his resignation.

Former soldier Alan Weir, 26, used his security card to open the Prestonfield House Hotel’s wine cellar and made off with the wine and spirits.

He quit his job later that night, but was caught on CCTV and tracked down by police.

The stash discovered in Weir’s home was described by police as “the best stocked wine cellar in Dalkeith,” according to his former colleagues.

Paintball fraudster got tax cash helping hand

By Michael MacLeod

SCOTTISH Enterprise has come under fire for dishing out £30,000 to help a Scots paintball company run by a convicted fraudster.

Edinburgh-based Bedlam Paintball got taxpayer-funded help to develop its “brand strategy” in 2007.

But there are calls for the quango to review its background checks after it emerged Bedlam’s owner Roman Rock, 49, was jailed for three years in 1997 for his part in a £100,000 credit card fraud.

Central Scotland MSP John Wilson said Scottish Enterprise had “failured to learn lessons from previous cases where it has given support to companies run by people with dubious backgrounds.”

But Rock, real name Jan, insisted he had turned his business dealings around since his prison spell for the scam.

Lady Boys paint the town red at Festival

By Rory Reynolds

IT HAS to be one of the strangest sights yet at this year’s Edinburgh festival – the Lady Boys of Bangkok armed to the teeth with paintball guns.

They locked and loaded before unleashing a volley of paintballs at friend and Bedlam founder, Roman Rock, at the launch of what is their 11^th year performing in the capital.

Roman, 49, admitted it was the first time he’d been blasted by a lady boy, and laughed: “I thought would be quite amusing.

“I had to be a lady boy and they got to blast me – and they really got into the spirit of it.

Paintball shooter escapes jail sentence

By PAUL THORNTON

A FORMER soldier has told how his life was ruined when a paintball worker shot a gun at him, blinding him in one eye.

Allan Weir, 25, said he lost his job and needs surgery to save his eye after Calvin Blyth shot a loaded paintball gun at his face.

Blyth was working as a senior marshall at the Ape paintballing site in Ratho, near Edinburgh when the incident happened.

The 21-year-old claims he thought the gun was not loaded but failed to check the weapon for any paintballs before he fired it.