A drunk quad bike rider smashed into a parked car while taking a four-wheeler out for a “test drive”.
Licence-less Lewis Mossman, 22, careered through the narrow streets of Crail on the all-terrain-vehicle in May last year.
Mossman was spotted by witnesses swerving around parked cars on the road close to the Co-Op supermarket at around 11am on May 27, 2021.
He lost control, smashing into a Volkswagon car and shattering its rear window, before being thrown from the bike.
At 46mics/22, he was more than twice the drink-drive limit.
Mossman, of Cunzie Street, Anstruther, admitted drink-driving without a licence or insurance on Westgate South and Bow Butts Road.
H admitted damaging a car and failing to stop and give his details.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael disqualified him for a year and ordered him to undertake 120 hours of unpaid work.
Password thief
Serial thief Michael McNeilage sparked a security alert when he broke into St Dominic’s Primary School in Crieff and stole a computer and pad containing passwords. He was traced through DNA from blood left at the crime scene.
Knuckleduster
A Fife man caught with a banned weapon claimed that the device was a tool.
Kevin Muir, 54, from Strathmiglo, was apprehended at an address in Leslie after police received a report of a man there.
They searched him and found the knuckleduster.
When charged, he said: “It wasn’t to use as a weapon, it was to use as a tool”.
Solicitor Alistair Burleigh, defending, said Muir had turned his life around and is now in full-time employment.
Muir, of the village’s High Street, admitted being in possession of a knuckleduster at an address in Leslie on April 13 2020.
A plea of not guilty to attempting to break into a shed there by removing wooden panels was accepted by the Crown.
Branding the offence “bizarre”, Sheriff David Hall fined him £500.
Murder trial
The trial of former Fife College IT technician Lukasz Czapla, accused of murdering his two-year-old son Julius, heard details of a text message he sent the toddler’s mother on the weekend of the death.
Vodka in car
A serial drink driver from Latvia had two bottles of vodka seized from his passenger seat footwell after crashing into another vehicle in Montrose.
Jurijs Balahonovs, 55, appeared from custody at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit being over the limit.
The court heard police attended when he crashed his car at The Mall in Montrose on July 3 last year and officers found the the vodka.
His blood returned an alcohol reading of 261mg/50.
Defending, solicitor Nick Whelan said the 55-year-old’s employer was concerned about his alcohol consumption at the time but that his job is waiting for him.
Balahonovs, of Victoria Street in Montrose, was convicted of drink-driving in 2016 as well, meaning his ban will be at least three years.
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown deferred sentence until October 20.
Open Prison too ‘relaxed’
William Hunter escaped from Castle Huntly open prison, near Dundee, because he preferred the high security regime at HMP Shotts. The 43-year-old’s solicitor told Perth Sheriff Court: “He simply wasn’t coping with the relaxed regime at Castle Huntly.”
Thief jailed
A thief has been jailed for stealing from of vehicles in Fife.
Ian Gallacher, 34, of Binniehill Road, Slammanan, near Falkirk, pled guilty to the thefts when he appeared from custody at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
He admitted entering an insecure vehicle at Navity Farm House, Ballingry, and stealing a purse and its contents, between May 23 and 24 last year.
Procurator fiscal depute Azrah Yousaf told the court the purse contained £20 and credit cards.
Gallacher also pled guilty to entering an insecure vehicle in Navity Park and stealing £8 in cash on June 16 2021.
Sheriff David Hall jailed him for five months for the offending.
The court heard he is already serving a lengthy jail term for similar offences.
The full caseload of the Dundee Crime and Courts Team can be found here.
