TOP brass have chopped plans to ban officers from having beards, it has emerged.
The controversial move sparked fury among fuzzy-faced cops with four getting pay-outs totalling £60,000 after winning a legal battle.
Now the force has confirmed they’ve abandoned plans to make cops shave their facial hair.
It comes after they were forced to cough up to the traffic officers who were left “extremely upset” by its barmy plans for a clean-shaven policy.
David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said at the time: “They’ve had to go off sick because somebody had told them to shave, which sounds ridiculous but that’s the reality.
“There’s some whose families, kids don’t even know what they look like without a beard.”
Top brass sparked fury by announcing a ban on facial hair for most frontline officers and civilian staff, claiming it would ensure the effectiveness of protective FFP3 masks.
But the policy, initially scheduled to kick in on May 29 last year, triggered an avalanche of complaints and was shelved pending a review.
Chiefs have now decided to bin the madcap policy.
We told how in June last year how Scotland’s first bearded cop hit out at the force’s plans to ban bobbies from having facial hair.
Retired Stewart Hamilton, 85, drew much attention as the first officer on record to grow his facial hair while walking the beat in Lennoxtown, Dunbartonshire, in 1967.
He said at the time: “They are focusing on the wrong thing.
“I was rebellious for an officer but banning beards seems heavy-handed.
“It feels like we are going backwards.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We postponed implementation of the policy in July 2023 after listening to our people and reviewing health and safety evidence.
“There are no plans to introduce these changes.”
Mr Kennedy added: “The beard policy was a policy with no thought, no regard to equality and a draconian approach to common sense and proportionality in policing.
“Let’s hope that as the police service evolves so do modern attitudes to people and family-friendly policies.”