A 28-year-old has admitted assaulting a man and letting his dog bite him in Kirkcaldy.
Jack Gourlay dragged Steven Smith to the ground, repeatedly struck him on the head, and allowed his dog to bite him.
Mr Smith was severely injured in the assault.
Court papers state the incident took place on December 30 last year at Fair Isle Road, Kirkcaldy.
Gourlay, of the town’s Invertiel Terrace, further admitted resisting, obstructing or hindering two police constables by tensing his arms and grabbing the handcuffs, preventing them from being applied, at a property in the town’s Harris Drive on the same date.
Gourlay, who was not present at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, tendered guilty pleas through his lawyer David Cranston.
A not guilty plea was accepted to a charge of allowing the dog to be dangerously out of control.
Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane adjourned sentencing on Gourlay until August 16 to obtain background reports.
Cell search
A convicted armed robber was caught with an unauthorised mobile phone and SIM card behind bars.
Craig Pritchard, who was jailed for his part in an attempted raid on a BP filling station in Dunfermline, was caught with the contraband at Perth Prison earlier this year.
The 44-year-old was not brought to the city’s sheriff court when his case called on Friday.
But his lawyer tendered guilty pleas to charges of having a SIM card on February 13 and a mobile phone on March 22.
Fiscal depute Andrew Harding said the items were discovered during routine searches of the accused’s cell.
Sheriff Mark Moir KC sentenced Pritchard to four months imprisonment.
The term will run alongside his current sentence and will not affect his release date in July 2025.
Pritchard was jailed for four years in May 2021 for wielding a hammer during an attempted robbery on a petrol station in Dunfermline’s Bothwell Street.
Weeks later, he was sentenced to 45 months for breaking into a neighbour’s home, armed with a hunting knife.
Accident inquiry
The wife of a service engineer killed in a tragic accident at a Perth supermarket has spoken of her grief after an inquiry ruled her husband’s death could have been avoided.
Kenny Heron, 51, died after being crushed beneath a scissor lift at a Co-Op store in Bridgend, Perth, in October 2019.
Mr Heron was carrying out routine maintenance when he removed a “bung” in the lift’s hydraulics while underneath it, causing the lift platform to collapse on him.
He had just finished cleaning and greasing the Danish-built lift and had attempted to bleed the hydraulic system, which had failed to restart.
A fatal accident inquiry has ruled that a failure to provide supporting blocks or props – that could have stopped the lift from falling – contributed to Mr Heron’s death.
‘Malicious’ driving charge
A man has appeared in court accused of causing damage to a Scone property in an incident involving three vehicles.
Ross Boag faces allegations he maliciously drove a van towards two cars in Elmgrove, causing them damage, on January 14.
The 23-year-old is accused of using the van to force one of the cars, a Volvo V40, to strike a property causing extensive and structural damage.
Boag, of Gilsay Place, is further accused of dangerous driving.
He appeared in the dock on Friday and pled not guilty.
A trial was set for January 15, with an intermediate hearing on December 14.
Chip shop drama
A 57-year-old man brandished two large knives during a bizarre flare-up outside a Perthshire chip shop.
William Mongan grasped the blades as he stepped out of a car and began to approach a group of men in Aberfeldy town centre.
Perth Sheriff Court heard he was then suddenly pulled away by the vehicle he had just exited, dragged along the street and suffered serious injuries to his legs and back.
Mongan, of Garth Cottages, Aberfeldy, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive way, likely to cause fear or alarm, by shouting, swearing and brandishing knives on January 23, last year.
He was told that if he wasn’t a first offender, he may have faced prison.
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