Senior sheriff to retire
2 Nov 05
Sheriff Albert Sheehan's 46-year legal career ends this month
Sheriff Albert Sheehan is to retire after a 46-year career in the legal profession.
The 69-year-old sheriff will be stepping down from the bench on 25 November. Based at Falkirk for the last 24 years, Sheriff Sheehan had a career in the fiscal service prior to being appointed a floating sheriff in 1979. He served at Hamilton and Paisley, and took up the position as senior depute in Glasgow before becoming deputy Crown Agent in the Crown Office from 1974 until 1979.
Other achievements included being awarded the Levi Hulme Fellowship Scholarship in 1971, and serving on the Scottish Law Commission from 1979 to 1981.
Sheriff Sheehan won media coverage when he fined BP a then record fine of £1 million for safety lapses at its refinery in Grangemouth after a fire at the site in June 2000. He also allowed the lifting of reporting restrictions on naming a 14-year-old drug dealer from Bo'ness - his own home town.