A Fife shopkeeper told how he grabbed an imitation firearm as his shop was being robbed, fearing it was the real thing.
Gun terror
Kieran Pearson pointed the “weapon” at Zaheer Babar but the brave business-owner grabbed it from him and marched the bungling thief from his shop.
Pearson, 28, from Dunfermline, pled guilty at the High Court in Dunfermline to the attempted robbery – as well as another at a petrol station in Dunfermline, with accomplice, Craig Pritchard – and will be sentenced later.
Modest Zaheer said: “I did it for my my shop. But I would have done it for anyone.”
Read the full court report here and our interview with brave Zaheer here.
Thief caught again
A Dundee thief has had another 75 days added to his prison sentence after finding a collection of missing valuables and failing to attempt to trace their owner.
Scott Flynn was stopped by police when he was cycling without lights through the Fife hamlet of St Michael’s on February 24, 2020.
Officers searched the 35-year-old and discovered Flynn, of Invercraig Place, had a wallet and bank cards, a Swiss Army Knife and case, Leatherman multitool, iPod, headphones and charging port.
He appeared from custody At Dundee Sheriff Court to plead guilty to stealing the items by finding them and not attempting to discover their true owner.
Flynn was already midway through a 100-day custodial sentence for a separate act of thievery.
In March, he was jailed after stealing a bike from a Dundee shed while trying to flee from suspected county lines drug dealers.
Police chase
An unqualified driver led police on a chase across Dundee in a two-tonne truck.
Joyrider Alan Phillips sped through Charleston, onto the Kingsway and into the centre of Dundee, before finally being forced off the road and pepper-sprayed near Templeton Woods, after being tracked for miles.
The 22-year-old from Carnoustie admitted driving dangerously in 37 streets.
He drove on the wrong side of the road, careered the wrong way around several roundabouts, ran red lights, hit a car and narrowly missed a bus during the late night rampage.
A sheriff said he effectively used the car as a weapon, adding: “You don’t seem to have any regard for any other human being.”
Read the astonishing full story here.
Attacked police
Three police officers were attacked by a man and woman during a fracas at a Dundee flat.
Genna Towns and Lyall Murdoch appeared at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday and admitted the assaults at Town’s home in the city’s Pitkerro Drive in January, last year.
Murdoch, 30, of Laing Place, pled guilty to assaulting PC Greg Dempster by repeatedly punching him on the head.
He admitted a further charge of punching PC Tony Weed on the body.
Towns, 30, admitted assaulting PC Dempster and PC Danielle Irvine.
Sentence was deferred to May 14 for background reports.
