Police have turned down an offer by a charitable foundation to cover the operational costs of Barack Obama's trip to Scotland.
Information obtained by the Press Association reveals Police Scotland spent £13,410.60 for the visit on May 26, which The Hunter Foundation said it would be happy to pay.
The former US president played 18 holes at St Andrews before hosting a charity dinner, organised by the foundation, in Edinburgh.
Now the force has said it would be "inappropriate" to accept the offer and said the money would benefit "youngsters in need" across the country.
Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson said: "Security arrangements for individuals with the status of president Obama are business as usual for Police Scotland.
"In addition, the policing arrangements took place at a time when the UK terrorism threat level had been raised to critical."
Operational costs included overtime pay, vehicle hire as well as refreshments for officers and other staff involved with the event.
Mr Obama's visit saw him give a speech in front of around 1,200 people including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, author JK Rowling and musician Annie Lennox.
Tickets for tables of 10 went on sale from about £5,000 and quickly sold out.
The dinner raised £670,000 for good causes in Scotland.
Those to benefit include Unicef, Maggie's Centres, the Beatson Clinic, Clic Sargent and Chas.
But before speaking, the Democrat could not resist a game at the home of golf in Fife before giving his speech on his first visit to Scotland.
Amid heavy security, he shook hands with spectators as he made his way around the course.
Police had a large presence at the scene, with officers keeping hundreds of spectators at a distance and providing a convoy as he travelled between various destinations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel