An offshore worker’s bad dancing at a music festival led police to suspect he was on drugs.
So when two officers saw him drop a small ziplock bag, pick it up and then pop it down the front of his trousers, they decided to search him.
But 38-year-old David Moffat’s lawyer John MacColl believed it could have been an illegal search with the police not having reasonable ground to suspect his client.
However after a brief trial at Inverness Sheriff Court on Friday, Moffat, of Lower Knockhoilum, Whitebridge was found guilty by Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood and fined £500 for possessing a small quantity of ecstasy tablets at the Groove Festival in Dores on August 20 last year.
The court was told that two plain clothes police were on duty looking for drugs misuse at the event when their attraction was drawn to Moffat “dancing erratically.”
Constable Daniel Goodwin said: “He was sweating profusely, dancing over the top and didn’t appear to be in control of himself. Then he dropped a small packet, picked it up quickly and put it down the front of his trousers.
“He then appeared to hand a small item to a man he was dancing with.”
Constable Goodwin said the search revealed tablets in the coin pocket of Moffat’s jeans but nothing down the front of them.
“He was ejected from the festival as is routine procedure and told a report would be sent to the procurator fiscal.” PC Goodwin added.
Mr MacColl questioned the validity of their reasons to believe his client may be in possession of illegal drugs before actually finding them.
He said: “It is a legal point and my advice to him was to challenge the search. The police have to have a reasonable suspicion that he had controlled drugs.”
But Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood rejected his objection that the search was conducted illegally, and convicted Moffat.
