Call to axe WPC's television show after car attack

Oct 19 2008

MSPs are demanding that a crime fighting reality show starring a disgraced policewoman is taken off TV.

WPC Sarah Brand, 36, tried to run over her love-rat husband Colin and his lover Gillian Baird.

She also splashed paint stripper over Baird's car and slashed its tyres.

BBC cameras followed Brand on the beat during the Edinburgh Festival in Shops, Robbers And Videotape.

Now Independent Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald wants the episode shelved.

She said: "The show would certainly carry more credibility if one of the featured police officers didn't have a criminal conviction."

At a trial at Haddington Sheriff Court in March, Brand admitted reckless driving, vandalism and driving while drunk.

She was fined £1000 and banned from driving for a year.

Shops, Robbers And Videotape was broadcast by the BBC in 2003 and repeated on UKTV People in August.

UKTV People said: "We will decide in due course whether to repeat this programme."

Lothian and Borders police said: "Internal disciplinary proceedings are ongoing."