A senior police officer who has been on extended leave for three years could soon be back at work.
Assistant Chief Constable John Mauger was placed on "gardening leave" from the former Central Scotland Police force in June 2010.
It is understood he could be back in uniform as early as next week – and may be given the task of looking after policing for next year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The Central force's third in command was placed on leave following allegations of misconduct.
Mr Mauger had allegedly clashed with the force's then chief constable Kevin Smith amid claims of insubordination and inefficiency.
Under the change to a single national force on April 1 this year, all officers from "legacy forces" kept their ranks and conditions, meaning he will remain as an assistant chief constable and a role must be found for him.
The case of John Mauger has been costly for the Scottish police service – and the taxpayer. Although the final figure involved in the protracted investigation over the allegations may never be fully revealed.
A source said the assistant chief constable would return to work and was due to meet Chief Constable Stephen House within days to discuss his future within the current set-up.
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 hereComments are closed on this article