Trial of ‘radioactive’ suspect is postponed

A FRAUD suspect had to have his trial postponed yesterday – because he is radioactive.

Martin Ferguson was due to face trial next week in connection with a £7,000 fraud at Post Office branches in Perthshire.

However, a sheriff called off the trial after being told that Ferguson should not be in contact with the public because he poses a radioactive risk.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis took the decision to put Ferguson’s trial off until next spring after being given a factsheet from the nuclear medicine unit at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

Wheelchair-bound Ferguson, 56, and his wife Maureen, 47, of Muirmont Court, Perth, are alleged to have fraudulently obtained £7,000 from cash machines in Perthshire between 1 June and 14 December 2010.

Solicitor Kieran Shah, for Ferguson, told Perth Sheriff Court: “He has had radioiodine therapy very recently and he is effectively radioactive, for want of a better word, for a brief period afterwards.

“He should be fit to appear around about the start of December.”

Sheriff Foulis moved the trial to March.