PC claims colleague tried to fake drugs rap

A POLICE officer has told a court that one of his colleagues asked him to fake evidence in a drugs case.

Lothian and Borders constable Jonathon Threadgold said the fellow officer filed a report claiming both of them were present when a man handed over a stash of cannabis.

But giving evidence at Livingston Sheriff Court, PC Threadgold, 37, claimed Christopher Nisbet had surrendered the drugs to PC Jason Beck before he arrived at the scene. Mr Nisbet, 27, had previously had not guilty pleas accepted by the Crown to two charges of drug possession.

PC Threadgold also claimed that Beck had urged him, the day before Nesbit’s trial, to give false evidence that both officers were present when the accused voluntarily gave them three containers of marijuana and a lump of cannabis resin

Beck, 40, of Armadale, West Lothian, denies two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice and one charge of attempting to suborn an officer.

The allegations – connected to a drugs bust at a flat in Whitburn, West Lothian, on April 28, 2010 – have only now come to trial.

Officers from Lothian and Borders Police complaints and discipline department and the Scottish Police Federation sat through the trial, which was due to continue today.