Creep cop dodges jail term
BY CONNOR GORDON A JEALOUS police officer who kept tabs on his ex-lover after they split has avoided jail.
Daniel Hamilton used police software to track colleague Lauren Boyle after she dumped him.
The 31-year-old, from Edinburgh, travelled to Perthshire where Lauren had met her husband to discuss their divorce.
Hamilton was later held by colleagues after she reported him.
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that the pair met in police college in 2017.
But Hamilton was caught by Lauren looking through her mobile phone messages the following year.
After they split, Lauren met her former husband at Taymouth Marina in Perthshire to discuss their divorce.
She was then horrified after spotting Hamilton’s motor parked nearby and “became alarmed that he knew her whereabouts and had followed her”, said prosecutor Alistair Shaw.
Hamilton pled guilty to two charges of acting in a threatening and abusive manner yesterday.
Sheriff John McCormick handed him a community payback order.
He was told to do 160 hours of unpaid work within six months. NICOLA Sturgeon has defended Glasgow’s scandal-hit Lord Provost, insisting she is an “excellent” civic leader.
But the First Minister said Eva Bolander, who claimed 23 pairs of shoes on her expenses, was right to “reflect” on some of the items she paid for with public money.
The Record revealed Bolander, who attends ceremonial events and welcomes ambassadors to Glasgow, claimed over £8000 on clothes and makeovers in two years.
Her predecessor, Sadie Docherty, did not make any claims over a similar period.
Bolander billed the taxpayer nearly £1100 for shoes, £665 for five coats, about £374 for six jackets and nearly £415 for eight pairs of trousers.
Fancy spectacles were bought for £385, a designer hat cost £200 and the taxpayer also paid for £751 worth of haircuts and 20 nail treatments.
At the same time, the cash-strapped council, which has axed jobs in recent years, was being accused of illegally denying homeless people temporary accommodation.
After a public outcry, Bolander apologised for some of the claims and agreed to repay an undisclosed sum.
But opposition politicians have stepped up their calls for her to resign.
At First Minister’s Questions, Tory MSP Adam Tomkins said Bolander had “ripped off the people of Glasgow” and asked Sturgeon if the Lord Provost should go.
She said: “Eva Bolander, who is an BY PAUL HUTCHEON excellent Lord Provost for the city of Glasgow, has rightly and frankly reflected on some of the expense claims that she made.”
Labour councillor Martin McElroy, who helped expose the expenses row, responded by saying: “What is ‘excellent’ about charging council tax payers for underwear? She should urge her SNP colleague to resign as Lord Provost and end the humiliation.”
But Sturgeon went on: “All the claims were within the rules – nevertheless, she has reflected on them and decided that she should not have made certain claims.
“As elected politicians, we all have to be careful and considered about our expense claims but none of us wants a situation in which the only people who can take on roles – in particular, roles such as Lord Provost, which require attendance at a lot of formal functions – are those who can afford to equip themselves.” A similar argument was made by SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford on Wednesday. She said: “As a councillor, you’re not terribly highly paid, and if you only want Lord Provost-ships to be for rich people, who have a wardrobe full of glamorous clothes, then that’s fine.” The First Minister’s spokesman said: “It is obviously incumbent on politicians and people in positions like that to take a common sense view of how the rules should be applied.”
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