The Crown is considering launching an appeal against the decision to wipe a student’s criminal record clean after he was caught with cocaine in a city-centre bar.
Conor McCarthy, an engineering student at Strathclyde University, was given an absolute discharge last week after he admitted being in possession of the class-A drug.
Sheriff William Taylor told McCarthy, who was on course to get a first-class degree, that he did not want a criminal record to “blight his future career”.
Now the Crown Office has said it is considering appealing against the sentence on the grounds that it may have been “unduly lenient”.
Last night, a spokesman for the Crown said: “As with all cases, COPFS will consider the sentence in due course and give consideration to whether it might be unduly lenient.”
McCarthy, whose address was given in court papers as Pinelands, 10 Queens Road, Ballater, was spotted acting suspiciously in the toilets of the Tunnels on May 24 and was searched by officers who suspected him of being in possession of drugs.
He was found with a bag of white power in his hands, which was later discovered to be cocaine worth £35.
The 21-year-old had been celebrating the end of his exams with friends after returning home to the north-east for the summer.
Sheriff Taylor said: “Having previous convictions for drug offences can blight one’s career in all sorts of ways, I do not want you to have that, and in all the circumstances I grant you an absolute discharge.”
Did not want criminal record to blight his future career