DUNFERMLINE MP Thomas Docherty has denied newspaper claims that he wasted police time by starting an investigation into a stolen bottle of wine.

Mr Docherty had been sharing the wine with fellow MPs in the terrace bar at the Houses of Parliament after the budget debate.

Two visitors who had attended a reception in parliament earlier that evening wandered into the bar - restricted to MPS, peers and their guests - and nabbed the vino.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed Labour MP as saying, "To have two guards and a copper searching for a couple of blokes who ran off with a half-drunk bottle of wine left on a bar is daft." However, Mr Docherty said, "The Sunday newspaper story was simply not true.

"Security was not called because of the wine - we got that back straight away.

"I called security because these two guys had run off into the parliament building and could have been anywhere.

"It was just a case of these two coming into the bar where they shouldn't have been in the first place and chancing their luck.

"When we noticed the bottle was missing the barman told us he knew who had taken it.

"He went out to the terrace where these two had taken it and asked them, 'Is that your wine?' and they said, 'No'.

"We took the bottle back and then they disappeared into the parliament building so I called security.

"The police only got involved because it is they who monitor the CCTV pictures.

"The newspaper involved has written it up in the certain way which they feel will appeal to their readers and be more interesting but it's not true." Mr Docherty said he only saw the dodgy pair briefly but the newspaper said one of them was described as an "elderly white man with a walking stick".

Locally, Mr Docherty is better known for real ale rather than wine as one of the organisers of the annual Dunfermline Beer Festival, raising money for charities.