Fit and proper 
Scott Brownlie, who is out on licence after being convicted in 2012 for stashing £100,000 of heroin, pleaded with licensing officials to give him a “wee chance” by granting a temporary taxi licence.
Brownlie wants licensing officials to give him a “wee chance” by granting a temporary taxi licence.
A former taxi boss sentenced to a seven year jail term for stashing £100,000 of heroin has told how he wants to turn his life around by becoming a cabbie.
Scott Brownlie, who is out on licence after being convicted in 2012 for the offence, last week pleaded with licensing officials to give him a “wee chance” by granting a temporary taxi licence.
The 50-year-old, who has served three separate jail terms including one for conspiracy to assault and rob, was tagged when released last year.
Brownlie, who stays in Dumbarton’s Glasgow Road, appeared before West Dunbartonshire Council’s licensing committee and said: “I just want to get on with my life and stay away from things.
“I just want to put all that behind me and try to put a bit into the community.
“If I am granted the taxi licence, I know it will be monitored. I just want a wee chance to get on. That’s why I’ve applied for this. That’s why I’ve moved down into Dumbarton. I can’t get a job anywhere else.”
Brownlie is a former secretary of Clydebank TOA Taxis and has previous convictions going back to the early 1990s.
Sergeant Angela Walker of Police Scotland told members of the committee last week that he was handed a 10-year jail term in 1992 at the High Court in Kilmarnock for conspiracy to assault and rob.
He was then sentenced to three years in prison from the High Court in Glasgow following an incident in June 1999 when police officers made an attempt to stop a vehicle he was driving in Knightswood.
The police representative told how Brownlie rammed a stationary police vehicle and, once they had caught up with him a subsequent search of a lock-up he owned found a kilogramme of cocaine with a street value of £80,000 and 250 grammes of cannabis to the value of £1250.
In October 2011 he then found himself in bother with the law again resulting in a seven-year sentence and a confiscation order of £1000.
Sergeant Walker added: “Based on intelligence, police officers attended at his home address on October 7, 2011 with a search warrant in relation to the Misuse of Drugs Act. They found a carrier bag on top of a boiler in the bathroom.”
Police confirmed there were two packages of drugs found totalling 1.5 kilogrammes worth just more than £100,000 on the street.
When asked by licensing committee member Councillor Jim Finn if he used the drugs himself, Brownlie said: “No, it was financial gain. I had a lovely place up in Bearsden and everything was hunky dory.
“I wasn’t thinking properly. I was thinking about money. I wasn’t thinking of the consequences of it.
“I was trying to get a loan and it wasn’t happening. Somebody approached me ‘can you do this’ and I never thought if something happened here, I’m going to end up losing my house.
“I just thought of the money situation. I know there’s more to life than just money.”
Licensing convener Councillor Lawrence O’Neill described Brownlie’s previous convictions as “quite a catalogue”.
He added: “I have a concern in what it looks like with your history up until this point in time.”
The application was deferred until a special licensing committee meeting on March 1 for a social work representation to be made on that date.
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