Solicitor faces ruin after cocaine death

Published on Friday 11 September 2009 10:57

A SOLICITOR is facing ruin after being convicted of supplying drugs to a young scaffolder who died from a suspected overdose.

The arrest of Grant O'Connor – a former partner in legal firm Allan MacDougall & Co in Dalkeith – was revealed exclusively in the Evening News earlier this year.

The 37-year-old from Easter Road previously pleaded guilty to supplying David Norris and three other men with cocaine in his office on 17 January this year, and was sentenced to 150 hours of community service at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday.

The court heard how Mr Norris, 25, died in a friend's home after falling unconscious in the office.

As reported in the News, Mr Norris was a former junior boxing champion from a well-known city sporting family.

He was the grandson of Walter "Wattie" Whytock, the first boxer from Edinburgh's famous Sparta gym to win a title, in the 1940s.

A former Gracemount High pupil, he had also acted in his teenage years and was said to have shown promise.

The court heard from Fiscal Depute Jane Spark, who told Sheriff Roderick MacLeod that Mr Norris and three friends had spent the evening drinking in Lasswade.

Norris and one of the others had also consumed some cocaine. The men then went to Dalkeith, and, in a pub there, met O'Connor and his girlfriend.

At closing time, O'Connor invited Norris and his friends back to his office in Dalkeith's High Street. The Fiscal said drinking continued and Mr Norris produced a bag of cocaine. Lines of the drug were set up on a desk and snorted by the men, but not by the woman. O'Connor produced another small bag of cocaine and this too was snorted by the men.

A short time later Mr Norris appeared to lose consciousness. He was taken back to the home of one of his friends where he died.

Ms Spark said investigations revealed a combination of high levels of alcohol, cocaine and GHB had caused his death.

She added: "It is accepted by The Crown that the cocaine supplied by the accused did not cause his death."

Solicitor Advocate, Duncan Hughes, representing O'Connor, said this acceptance had given him some comfort. But he said: "He will have to live with the guilt for years."

O'Connor, he said, had worked his way up through the firm to end up as a partner. That partnership had been terminated after the incident.

Sheriff MacLeod said he was taking into account that O'Connor was a first offender and that the supply of the drug had been on only one occasion.