A businessman who made claims over the extent of freemasonry in Fife Constabulary and the Scottish judicial system was found not guilty of theft at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, yesterday.

Later, Thomas Minogue, 56, said he had been ruined and forced to retire by the actions of Fife Police and Dunfermline's procurator-fiscal.

Minogue, managing director of Kingdom Engineering Ltd, Cowdenbeath, was acquitted of stealing parts of the #30,000 refurbished Kinghorn Railway Station Bridge in December 1999.

In evidence, he admitted removing the bridge parts from a yard at Lathalmond, because steel lattice work belonging to him had been welded into parts of the refurbished bridge and the only way this could be proved was to remove the parts before they were dressed and painted.

Sheriff Isobel McColl held Mr Minogue had no felonious intent in removing the parts.

Mr Minogue, who faces a legal bill of between #25,000 and #40,000, said: ''I will be lodging formal complaints against the police, the fiscal and the justiciary.''

He is due to appear before the justice committee of the Scottish Executive next Tuesday, when it will hear his argument that judges should declare whether or not they are freemasons.

He said yesterday: ''I agree I got a fair trial from Sheriff McColl and I accepted she was not a freemason. But those bound by their masonic oath must prefer the evidence of another freemason.''