Two men have appeared in court accused of endangering St Johnstone supporters by setting off a flare outside McDiarmid Park.
Morgan Robertson and Ryan Kennedy, both from Forfar, are accused of culpably and recklessly lighting and holding the pyrotechnic while standing among a crowd of supporters on an embankment near the stadium.
The charge states the pair were there to watch the Scottish Premiership Boxing Day clash between St Johnstone and Celtic in 2021.
Robertson, 22, of Dundee Loan, and Kennedy, 26, of Viewmount, deny the charge and will stand trial next month.
Taxi driver rapist jailed
A former school taxi driver from Dundee has been handed a 10-year-prison sentence after being convicted of three child rapes. Ronald Smith raped a 13-year-old at Riverside Pavilion in Dundee on multiple occasions in his car between February 9 and January 1 2021 and at an address in the city between in January 2021.
Met officer jailed
A retired Metropolitan Police officer from Perthshire has been jailed at Southwark Crown Court for a three-year plot to share “the most depraved” child sexual abuse images
Jack Addis, 63, had pled guilty to a charge of conspiring with co-accused Jeremy Laxton and serving Met chief inspector Richard Watkinson, 49 – who was found dead before he was charged – to distribute or show indecent images of children.
Addis made his plea in May by video-link from HMP Dumfries, where he is serving an 18-month sentence for three counts of voyeurism and possessing indecent photographs of a child.
Mr Justice Wall jailed Addis for three years and nine months and Laxton for five years and nine months.
Laxton also pled guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child, possession of a prohibited image, possessing an extreme pornographic image and possession of cannabis on or before 20 September 2021.
He admitted similar offences at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court, for which he was also sentenced on Friday.
The ex-policeman further admitted a charge of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of the offence of misconduct in a public office between December 1 2019 and May 1 2021.
Watkinson, who was a serving Met chief inspector for neighbourhood policing at the West Area Command Unit, was found dead at his home in Buckinghamshire on January 12 this year.
An NSPCC spokesperson said: “It is deeply troubling that Addis and Laxton, whose roles as police offers were to enforce the law and protect the most vulnerable in society, conspired together to share images of children being sexually abused.
“This is compounded by the fact they would have been well aware that the impact of child sexual abuse on victims can be devastating and long-lasting.”
Blackout ban
A van driver who blacked out before colliding with two children on a Carse of Gowrie road has been handed a one year driving ban. Pensioner Ronald Craik struck the school friends as he drove home in a van with no air conditioning on one of the hottest days of 2019. He later told police he thought he fell asleep after becoming “overcome” by heat by lawyers said he fainted.
Abuser warning
A seral sex offender who repeatedly assaulted two little boys in Perthshire in the 1990s has been told to be under “no illusion” about the seriousness of his crimes.
William Urquhart, 59, was given the warning by judge Lady Haldane after she heard how he subjected the children to sexual assaults between 1992 and 1998.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Urquhart told one of his victims not to tell anyone about the abuse.
However, they spoke to the police as adults and Urquhart, of Denholm, Roxburghshire, was arrested.
He pled guilty to two charges of lewd, indecent and libidinous conduct towards the children when they were aged 10 and nine.
Remanding him in custody ahead of a sentencing hearing later this month, Lady Haldane said: “You should be under no illusions about what is going to happen to you.
“These are serious offences to which you have pleaded guilty to and a custodial sentence will be the likely outcome of this case.”
Urquhart has an analogous conviction.
Defence advocate Ronnie Renucci KC said he would reserve his mitigation until the sentencing hearing on August 25.
Stress claim
A Cowdenbeath man claimed he had more than 200 vile child sexual abuse images because he was suffering stress after the death of his father through Covid-19. Duncan Cowan, 47, accessed material featuring girls thought to be as young as three.
Banned and on drink or drugs
A banned driver has admitted motoring through Blairgowrie while under the influence of drink or drugs.
Ian Hufton appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and pled guilty to driving a Vauxhall Astravan along High Street on October 25 2021.
The 51-year-old, from Barnsley, is currently disqualified following a conviction at Leeds Crowns Court.
Sheriff David Hall deferred sentence until August 23.
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