Ex-Gers star cleared of assault

Durie was fined £100 for committing a breach of the peace

Former Scottish international footballer Gordon Durie has been cleared of assault.

The former Rangers striker, who also played with Chelsea and Tottenham, had been accused of assaulting a railway worker at Edinburgh's Waverley Station.

He appeared with three other men. All four were fined £100 after admitting one charge of breach of the peace.

Outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Durie, 40, said: "We should never have been here in the first place."

Durie, of Donibristle Gardens, Dalgety Bay, had originally denied committing a breach of the peace in the station and assaulting Keith Laing on 14 November.

Paul Mooney, 40, of Johnstone Park and Edward Spence, 41, of Hillfield Road, both Inverkeithing; and Scott Houston, 45, of Echline View, South Queensferry, had also denied the breach of the peace charge.

Football pundit

Mooney and Spence also pled not guilty to assaulting railway employees and they were also cleared of the charge.

The trial began on 27 January and was adjourned until Friday.

After a day's evidence and following negotiations between the men's defence agents and the fiscal, the men admitted committing a breach of the peace, after an allegation that they struggled with police officers was deleted.

The Crown accepted their not guilty pleas to the assault charges.

The court was told that none of the men had any previous convictions.

The incident took place at Edinburgh's Waverley Station

Hugh Neilson, Durie's solicitor, said his client now worked as a football pundit on television.

All the men's solicitors stressed that a guilty plea to the breach of the peace charge had been offered to the Crown at an early stage, but had not been accepted.

The court heard that there had been a Hibs-Rangers game in the city on the Sunday afternoon, but the four men had been at a charity sportsman's dinner.

They had gone to the station in a taxi to return home on a train when someone threw a hamburger at Durie and Mooney had been spat on.

The court had heard earlier that a youth had sworn at Durie.

The men admitted to becoming frustrated at the actions of others and shouting.

Sheriff James Farrell said the remaining breach of the peace charge had been diluted with the deletion of the accusation of struggling with police and was now a minimal example of that offence.

Had it been accepted by the Crown at an earlier stage it would have been dealt with in the district court.

Durie said he and his three companions were glad the case was over as it had been hanging over them for a long time.