A Dundee woman who tried to rob a Just Eat delivery driver will be sentenced next month.
Annie Finlay, 31, appeared by video link from HMP Edinburgh to Dundee Sheriff Court to admit assaulting the man and trying to rob him in the close of a block of flats in Dundee’s Polepark Road at around 11.30am on November 6 2021.
She engaged him in conversation, then asked him for money, before brandishing an eight-to-ten-inch metal pole at him.
Finlay, of Brewery Lane, then said: “Give me all the money you have.”
She grabbed his Just Eat bag, then the hat from his head and threw it away.
As he fled, Finlay struck him with the pole, leaving a 6cm graze.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael deferred sentencing until September 1.
Compensation for nurses
Elizabeth Reid, 46, of Glenshee Crescent, Perth has been ordered to pay compensation to two nurses she attacked during a violent outburst at Perth Royal Infirmary.
She was put in restraints following the disturbance on August 5 2021, when Covid lockdown restrictions were in force.
She had struck one nurse on her left breast and bit her colleague on the forearm.
At Perth Sheriff Court, she admitted both assaults.
The court heard Reid did not break the skin or draw blood when she bit her second victim.
Solicitor Paul Ralph, defending, said she started offending after entering a relationship with “a man who is very well known to this court” but they have since split and she is turning her life around.
Sheriff David Hall told her: “This type of behaviour is viewed extremely seriously by the court.
“You have already served time in prison and I now have to decide whether there is an alternative to another custodial sentence.
“You appear to have turned your life around.”
He ordered Reid to carry out 190 hours of unpaid work and pay £300 compensation to each victim.
Cleared of culpable homicide
Dundee gas engineer Ian Higgins has been cleared of causing a man’s death in a common stairwell in January 2022. He admitted kicking/ pushing Andrew Cox on stairs in Forester Street but said he was acting in self defence, believing he was going to be attacked. Mr Cox fell backwards and suffered fatal head injuries. A jury found Mr Higgins, 34, not guilty.
Cannabis trio
Two members of a gang of cannabis dealers caught in Dundee have been sentenced and a third will find out his fate next month.
Last month, Forfar Sheriff Court heard police discovered cannabis worth up to £11,500 and almost £1,000 in cash in a Gibson Terrace flat.
Co-accused Kenneth Nicoll, 30, and Nikodem Szafran, 20, were inside and admitted being concerned in the supply of cannabis.
Nicoll, who while awaiting sentence pled guilty to a Stanley knife attack in Forfar, was jailed for two years in total, while Szafran was ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.
Sentencing on Steven Bracy, who soiled himself then carried out a dirty protest in the back of a police van after officers uncovered the trio’s hash stash, was deferred until September 26 for more reports.
Dog neglect
A man responsible for a “shocking catalogue of neglect and ill-treatment” of dogs has been banned from owning or keeping animals for more than a decade. Jay Kenny left seven dogs – four lurchers, a Patterdale terrier and two German shepherds – living in squalid conditions at a farm near Kelty, for more than seven months.
Nightclub punch
22-year-old Kieron McCole punched another man in the face at Dunfermline’s Life nightclub.
The admitted June 17 assault caused McCole’s victim to fall back and hit his head on the ground.
He landed awkwardly and broke his ankle.
Fiscal depute Christine Allan said: “Police attended and saw the witness on the ground with a significant amount of blood coming from the wound on his head.”
McCole, of St Peter’s Court in Inverkeithing, later turned himself in.
Defence lawyer Alexander Flett said there was a “background” between his client and the victim and after words were exchanged, McCole “lashed out and struck one blow he very much regrets”.
Sheriff Francis Gill sentenced McCole to carry out 110 hours of unpaid work and placed him on offender supervision for nine months, as part of a community payback order.
Rapist jailed
A sex attacker from Perth has been jailed for eight years after a jury found him guilty. David McLean, 36, preyed on a young girl at a house in the city, when she just 15 and raped another girl in Perth after starting to sexually abuse her when she was just 12 in August 2015.
Ammonia threat siege
At Forfar Sheriff Court, an Arbroath man who armed himself and threatened to pour ammonia over police during a six and a half hour siege has been sentenced to a nine-month restriction of liberty order.
Lee Hackett, 49, behaved in a threatening manner at his home Strathairlie Avenue on April 17 after armed police and firefighters arrived there.
He told them he had a gun and knives and threatened to pour ammonia over police while he was holding a bottle.
He also brandished a knife and repeatedly made threats.
The incident resulted in gas supplies to the area being cut off and local residents being evacuated.
Bus attack
A Fife teenager dragged a driver off a bus by his tie and threw him to the ground, before kicking him during a vicious assault. David Irwin launched the savage attack after the driver told him to leave a bus on which he was causing trouble at Dunfermline bus station.
Tasered after garden fork threat
A Kirkcaldy man who brandished a garden fork in Fife has been given 100 hours unpaid work and a nine-month non-harassment order.
Shane Wren, 32, who has a previous conviction for hauling a child’s pet rabbit from its hutch and threatening to “slaughter” it as the toddler watched from an upstairs window, admitted behaving in a threatening manner after becoming irate with his ex-partner on July 9.
The woman called police as the dispute escalated outside her home.
They found Wren in the garden, fiscal depute Michael Robertson told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, and he challenged them.
He threatened to “run through” one of them with the three-to-four-foot fork and was eventually brought down with a taser.
Solicitor David Bell, defending, said his client’s behaviour was due to a family dispute and added Wren, of Millar Street, Kirkcaldy, had personally apologised to each police officer after arriving at the town’s police station.
Crash charges
Lorry driver Justin Bower, 46, from North Wales, has appeared in court over a crash which left four horses dead. He faces allegations he drove a lorry dangerously on the A9 south of Perth, while using his mobile phone and steering with his elbows, causing a road crash and injuring another man, in August 2021. He denies the charge.
Shocker
An online shopper who tasered himself to “show off” after firing his weapon around 20 times at a friend has been placed on a long-term deferred sentence.
Darren Petrie spent around £10 on a device from Chinese website Wish so he could shock his drunken pals with it.
The court was told after shooting his drinking buddies, Petrie turned the taser on himself to see what it felt like – and was heard to shout out in agony.
At a hearing earlier this year, Petrie, 35, from Dundee, admitted assaulting and injuring two men by repeatedly shocking them on April 11 2020, as well as having the weapon.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael imposed a three month curfew lasting from 7pm to 7am each night.
This will have a break between 9pm and 9.30pm so Petrie can take his dog out.
Petrie will also be supervised for 18 months and must complete 200 hours of unpaid work in a year.
The sheriff: “These are an alternative to custody.”
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