Chief calls for reform

THE head of the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) has called for it to be disbanded and merged into a single police force.

Gordon Meldrum, director general of Scotland's equivalent of the FBI, was speaking at the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (Asps) conference yesterday. The association has previously said the SCDEA should be scrapped if Scotland moves to a single force to avoid creating a two-tier police, similar to the US.

Meanwhile, David Strang, chief constable of Lothian and Borders, Scotland's second biggest force, backed a regional model.