A landlord has been banned from letting property in Edinburgh after he failed to report that he was a registered sex offender.

Kevin Cowley, originally of Easthouses, Midlothian, was jailed for four years in 2018 after being found guilty of indecent assault against a 15-year-old girl, reports the Edinburgh Evening News.

The licensing sub-committee of the regulatory committee heard that Cowley had not declared his conviction when applying for landlord registration in the city relating to one property on Water Street, Leith.

However, Police Scotland told councillors how Cowley had stayed at a friend’s caravan in East Lothian in 2017 after he had been out drinking in Leith. The friend’s daughter woke up in a state of partial undress with Cowley leaning over her, then ran from the room, telling her parents that she was in pain and that she did not know what had happened before she woke up.

Cowley was sentenced in August 2018 at the High Court in Edinburgh after pleading guilty.

During sentencing, Lord Boyd of Duncansby told him: “You gave no explanation for your behaviour, but it is clear it was for your own sexual gratification. It is clear this had a traumatic and lasting effect on your victim.”

Cowley was placed on the sex offender’s registry for life and jailed for four years.

He did not attend the committee meeting, and Edinburgh councillors decided to remove Cowley’s entry from the register in his absence.

Landlord registration in Scotland requires landlords of properties and HMOs to register with their local authority and to be a fit and proper person.