A would-be thief caught red-handed inside a Perth bingo hall has been given a “lifeline”.
John Hayton appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted breaking into the Premier Bingo branch on South Methven Street with the intention to steal on July 23 last year.
The 50-year-old, of Parmelia Court, was placed on a Drug Treatment and Testing Order for three years.
Sheriff Euan Duthie wished him good luck and said: “This is a lifeline. It is giving you a chance.”
Dog killer ban
A man from St Andrews who stabbed his mother’s pet dog to death with a screwdriver in Dundee has been placed under supervision and banned from keeping animals for 33 months. The charred remains of Buddy the German Shepherd were found in a shallow grave in parkland after Bradley Simpson‘s savage attack.
Racist remarks
An Arbroath man racially abused a police officer with the wrong sick racial epithet.
Christopher Flaherty, 39, admitted shouting racial abuse at PC Jeffrey MacSporran at his partner’s home on High Street between Christmas and New Year 2021.
Flaherty also refused to leave the property, took an aggressive stance and challenged officers to a fight, Forfar Sheriff Court heard.
He called PC MacSporran “a bald n****r” and when in the back of a police vehicle, said: “I’ll show you how tough you are” and “get these fucking handcuffs off me.”
Defence solicitor Nick Whelan, in mitigation for the accused, said: “He insists these were empty threats.
“The officer does not fit the ethnic group of the one he insulted.”
PC McSporran’s race was not revealed.
Sheriff Krista Johnston placed Flaherty, of Brothock Mill Place, on a community payback order of 90 hours unpaid work and six months on supervision, as a direct alternative to custody
She said: “I’m particularly concerned about the offensive remarks made.
“You do show some level of remorse.
“It is clear alcohol causes you to behave in this unacceptable way. You need to address this moving forward.”
Flaherty was further admonished for a bail breach.
Compensation in the post
A Perthshire post office boss who left a customer with broken ribs and a collapsed lung in a “brutal and sustained” assault has narrowly avoided jail. Auchterarder shopkeeper Nahman Naheem has been ordered to pay compensation after a vicious flare-up outside his High Street store caused by a broken door..
Rapist jailed
Fife rapist Stephen Williams has been jailed for four years.
Williams, 32, from Dunfermline, admitted three charges of raping two women at locations in Fife between April 2009 and September 2021.
The High Court in Edinburgh previously heard how he told police “he had interfered with one of the complainers when he should not have done that.”
Prosecutor Eric Robertson said: “He stated that he had touched her in places he shouldn’t have when she was asleep.”
Williams, who worked as a meat packer, also admitted having sex with the other complainer after she had said no.
He was sentenced at the High Court in Inverness this week.
Footballer fined
Former Aberdeen FC player Funso Ojo has been fined £420 for assaulting a Dundee United fan following a stormy New Form derby. The midfielder stood trial at the JP court in Dundee for the Tannadice assault, with fellow former Dons star Connor McLennan – now with St Johnstone – appearing as a witness.
William Rodger correction
A report carried in this column previously stated William Rodger, 53, of Charlotte Street, Stanley, had been convicted of domestic abuse offences after a trial at Perth Sheriff Court.
Although he was convicted of charges, they were not as originally reported.
Rodger was found guilty of grabbing a woman by the arms and slapping her face on a date in 2020.
He had originally been accused of punching her but this was amended prior to conviction
It had previously been reported he engaged in a course of abusive conduct towards another woman, in breach of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, from April 2019 until July 2021.
The sheriff found him not guilty of this but instead, found him guilty of domestically-aggravated threatening or abusive behaviour, namely sending threatening and offensive text messages between September and December 2020.
Rodger was fined £840 and made the subject of a non-harassment order lasting two years.
We apologise for the errors contained in the original report.
