A nurse who worked with drug addicts and alcoholics has been struck off for smuggling cannabis into Scotland from Amsterdam inside a sock.
Amanda Urquhart of Clava Road, Inverness, was caught with 72g of the drug when she flew back to Edinburgh International Airport with her partner.
She claimed to have brought a small amount of herbal cannabis for personal use and said she was unaware that there was so much in her luggage when she was searched on December 3, 2011.
The drugs were stashed in seven “dealer bags” and a sock containing three bags in a smaller plastic container, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.
Ms Urquhart, who was employed by Highland Council as a criminal justice officer (alcohol), claimed she wrapped them in a sock to prevent her clothes from smelling.
She was convicted at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court on October 2, 2012, for importing the controlled drugs and fined £450.
Ms Urquhart, who worked within the justice system with offenders with addictions, did not inform her managers about her conviction and the matter only came to light when her partner’s manager reported it.
Striking her off the NMC’s register panel chairman Edward Lucas said: “Ms Urquhart has breached fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and her actions have brought the profession into disrepute.”