Case has cost taxpayers £1.5 million

THE John Mauger saga has cost the public purse an estimated £1.5 million over six years.

He picked up more than £500,000 in wages during five years of “enforced leave”.

And while he was paid to stay home, lawyers raked in an estimated £1m of legal costs now associated with the case.

All chief officers and superintendents in Scotland benefit from a taxpayerfunded insurance fund which covers their costs for judicial reviews, defending disciplinary action and challenging enforced retirement decisions.

The premiums for this fund cost around £90,000 a year.

Mauger qualified for this help and has been using the services of Levy & McRae for years.

It is estimated the costs associated with his legal fees will run to £300,000.

However, one consequence of Mauger’s failed Court of Session challenge was he had to pay some of the costs out of his own pocket. This came to around £80,000.

Elsewhere, the now defunct Central Scotland Police Board spent £500,000 on legal fees relating to Mauger’s dismissed disciplinary case.

Overall legal costs to Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) are thought to run to around £200,000.

In a Freedom of Information request last year, the SPA said it had spent £71,435 with law firm DLA Piper and £7920 with QC Roddy Dunlop in relation to the Mauger case.