Man spared jail for supplying drugs to loch death student
A MAN who admitted supplying magic mushrooms to a student who was later found dead in a loch was yesterday spared prison.
Scott Mckerral was given 210 hours of community service and an 18 month supervision order, with a warning that any breach of them will see him jailed.
The body of Antoine Maury was found in Edinburgh in December last year, weeks after he disappeared.
As Mckerral, 20, of Campbeltown, Argyll, left court yesterday, he was confronted by Mr Maury’s mother, Laura Vesterinen-Maury.
Mrs Vesterinen-Maury, who had travelled from France, said she refused to accept that he was remorseful for providing the mushrooms to her 20-year-old son. She asked him: ‘If you have shown remorse, why have you not shown any to me?’
Mckerral was pulled away by his mother, who said: ‘How dare you?’
Mrs Vesterinen-Maury replied: ‘My son is dead.’
A female police officer then intervened to end the confrontation.
Mrs Vesterinen-Maury said later: ‘I can see that in the circumstances it might be difficult for a young man to speak to me and to my family direct. But he could have written to us care of the police, or via his defence lawyer.
‘Or he could have sent us a message on social media, which he uses frequently and where, frankly, there have been few signs of remorse.
‘There are, however, lots of photos of him having a good time in recent months.’
Mckerral had pleaded guilty by letter to being concerned in the supply of a fungus containing psilocin, known as magic mushrooms, at the Halls of Residence at Edinburgh College, to ‘another or others and, in particular, to Antoine Maury’ on October 24, 2016.
Mr Maury had a French father and Finnish mother and had fallen in love with Scotland while boarding at St Leonards School in St Andrews.
He had returned to study music management, but was barely two months into his course when he disappeared.
His body was found on December 2 last year in Duddingston Loch.
He was found close to the last sightings of him on the night of October 24, when he had run away from friends and removed his upper clothing before entering Holyrood Park.
Despite the passage of time, there were still traces of psilocin in his body.
Sheriff John Cook extended the sympathy of the court to his family and told Mckerral that any matter relating to Class A drugs was serious, although he noted the Crown was not relying on any causal link to the death.
Mrs Vesterinen- Maury had demanded he be jailed, ‘at least for a time’ so that he understood the consequences of his actions.