A local authority has refused to issue a private landlord licence after it was revealed the applicant had a conviction for stalking.

The application from Ryan Maginnes – who runs two security firms – was turned down by Dumfries and Galloway Council, according to a report in the Falkirk Herald.

The paper says the council’s licensing panel took the decision after Police Scotland warned it did not consider him a “fit and proper” person because of his criminal record.

The panel also heard that council housing officers were investigating what the paper describes as “a string of complaints” against him from an existing tenant. 

Correspondence between the landlord and the authority concerning the licensing registration had been “confrontational”.

Maginnes was told earlier this year he needed to register as a private landlord after the council received a housing benefit claim for an unregistered property in the village of Carsphairn in Kirkcudbrightshire.

He was then issued with a rent penalty notice which meant he could no longer collect rent from his tenant and warned any further attempt to register would incur a late application fee of £110.

His response was to accuse the council of “incompetence” – and threaten his tenant with eviction.

However, Maginnes paid the fee in May but by that time it had been revealed he had been convicted in June 2014 of stalking and placed on a community payback order with the added condition not to contact his victim for three years.