Family of student still seek answers
Tragic student Scott Calder did not go into the sea anywhere near where police claim to have dropped him off, according to experts.
Sailors familiar with the tides and currents around East Lothian say it is impossible for Mr Calder to have been washed around the coast to the beach where his body was found the next morning.
He died after being allowed to wander off by police officers, who had been alerted by members of the public worried that he was at risk after drinking too much at a beer festival.
No one saw Mr Calder between 11.20pm when the officers allegedly dropped him off at a bus stop in Port Seton and the next morning when his body was found at Longniddry Bents, a mile and a half away.
Fisherman George Reid, who has been working along the coast for decades, said the tides on the night Scott was dropped off – October 13 – meant he could not have been washed up there.
Mr Reid said: “It just wouldn’t have been possible for a body to be washed that far on that night. The tide had gone out – it was low at 11.44pm on October 13.
“High tide was the next morning at 6.44am. If the lad was found on the beach at 7.45am, he was either already there or, well he couldn’t have gone in to the water far from where he was found.
“I would say no more than half a mile. It’s a tragic thing. I hope the family find out what happened to him.”
After The Sunday Post revealed Mr Calder had been in the care of officers before his death, the Crown Office instructed Police Scotland to make more inquiries.
However, they made no effort to ask businesses near the bus stop for CCTV while fishermen in the area said they were unaware of officers making inquiries about the tides on the night Mr Calder died.
Six weeks after his death, Mr Calder’s family have been given no information by police about his final hours and are still trying to establish how Scott found his way to the beach at Longniddry.
If, they are asking, he was dropped at Port Seton by police, how did he manage to walk one and a half miles along a pitch- black road before clambering down to the beach at Longniddry without anyone seeing