River City actor pretends to be cop for second time
A BUDDING River City actor was caught pretending to be a cop – for a SECOND time – after he was recognised by a former workmate.
David Friel, from Dalmuir, admitted posing as a plain-clothes cop with flashing blue lights on this car at the A82.
Sheriff John Hamilton said: “Mr Friel has a previous conviction for something extremely similar. To do it once is unusual; to do it twice becomes potentially sinister.”
“Why, and in what circumstances, does someone who has a previous conviction for impersonating a police officer have blue lights fitted to his car?
“It’s odd behaviour at best. I wonder if he’s got a clear picture of how odd and sinister and potentially serious this actually is.”
Dumbarton Sheriff Court was told that a driver and a guide on board a tour bus travelling north at Inveruglas had slowed to allow a southbound lorry to pass by on the afternoon of May 4.
CCTV footage from on board the bus, played in court, showed that as the lorry inched slowly past the bus, a dark coloured Vauxhall Astra es- tate with flashing blue lights fitted to the front grille pulled out from the line of following southbound traffic.
The footage showed Friel, who was driving the Astra, getting out of the vehicle and approaching the bus in a manner prosecutor Emma Thomson described as “officious”.
Ms Thomson said a witness on the bus “formed the view the accused was going to tell them he was a police officer”, but that Friel’s demeanour almost instantly changed “as if he had just recognised him”.
After a brief conversation between the bus driver and Friel, the lorry passed by, Friel got back into his car and made off – only to be stopped by police just two hours later.
Friel told the officers the blue lights were disconnected – but after taking statements from witnesses on the bus, three days later police went to Friel’s home and arrested him.
Friel later pleaded guilty to a charge of acting “in a manner which was calculated to suggest that you were a constable” by driving a vehicle fitted with blue lights, activating them, stopping the vehicle, exiting it and approaching another vehicle while wearing dark clothing.
Ian McCarthy, defending, said Friel had lost his job with a firm of undertakers as a result of the publicity surrounding his guilty plea on February 2.
Mr McCarthy told the court the vehicle Friel was driving had been fitted with blue lights because it had been used as a prop in “a well known Scottish soap”, and handed the sheriff a photograph showing the vehicle on the set of the BBC series River City.”
Sentencing has been deferred for the preparation of a psychiatric report.