A LAWYER jailed for three and a half years after being caught with 31kg of cannabis has been banned from working as a solicitor.

Gerard Nesbitt,54, and his side kick Iain McKenzie were caged in May 2013 following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Elite cops from the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency caught the pair with the narcotics at a flat in Battlefield, Glasgow, in May 2012.

After giving McKenzie, of Carntyne, Glasgow, four and a half years, judge Lord Burns told Nesbitt, who lived in the city's Newlands area, that he had no other option but to send him to prison.

Earlier this week, watchdogs at the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal struck the former employment law brief off.

Nesbitt, who is currently serving his sentence at HMP Castle Huntley near Dundee, won't be able to work as a lawyer ever again.

In a written judgement issued by the SSDT, the tribunal's Vice Chairman Douglas McKinnon, said that Nesbitt had a previous conviction for drugs offences.

He added: "Members of the public must have a well founded confidence that any solicitor whom they instruct will be a person of unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness.

"As a solicitor, the respondent was a member of a profession where a high standard of ethical conduct was required."