A convicted gangster in Edinburgh who was was caught with £500,000 worth of heroin has been refused a place on the landlord register in Scotland.

Paul Macaulay was jailed in 2017 after pleading guilty to the supply of controlled drugs and dangerous driving – including driving the wrong way around a roundabout – which put road users at “significant risk”.

The 37-year-old, who has over a dozen convictions going back to when he was 16, applied for landlord registration for two properties in Edinburgh.

But police told the council’s licensing sub committee the applicant’s “clear links” to serious organised crime and “large-scale distribution of illegal drugs” was “not compatible with being a registered landlord”.

Macaulay, who declared having no previous convictions on his application, was unable to attend the meeting yesterday as he was still in prison serving out his seven-years-and-four-month sentence.

Sergeant Grant Robertson from Police Scotland said the perpetrator was “living beyond his means” – as a search of his home found paperwork detailing more than £77,000 worth of deals and debts.

He added: “Paul Macaulay would not be a fit and proper landlord.”

Councillors refused his landlord registration application.

Lord Armstrong said at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2017 if Macaulay had been found guilty after a trial he would have jailed him for 11 years but the judge reduced his total sentence to seven years and four months following his guilty pleas.

Macaulay said he regretted his crimes “very much”.