A construction worker who dodged a family cinema date to drink a litre of vodka with colleagues came home late and choked his wife.
Tomasz Lewandowski, 42, returned to the dock at Forfar Sheriff Court to be sentenced, having previously admitted the June 5 domestic assault.
Fiscal depute Sam Craib said his partner she sent the children to the cinema themselves and waited at home in Arbroath.
When he arrived, he wrestled her to the bed and began to choke her.
The woman tried to scream for help and was left with bruising on her neck.
Solicitor Nick Markowski said: “He’d drank a litre of vodka with work colleagues.
“It seems to be a hard-working, hard drinking culture.
“Mr Lewandowski would like to continue the relationship but given the complainer is in favour of a non-harassment order, he’s been advised that’s likely to be granted.”
Sheriff Mark Thorley placed Lewandowski, now of Bank Street in Arbroath, under supervision for a year as a direct alternative to custody and imposed a two-year non-harassment order
Satans Slave murder bid
Former serviceman Barry Smith, 42, from Dunfermline has been jailed for eight years for attempting to murder a rival biker during a motorcycle gang fight. Smith, a Satans Slave, drove his ride-out support van at a member of the Tribe MCC in July 2021 during the battle on the A7 in the Borders.
Kafka-esque housing hunt
A homeless sex offender who tried to find accommodation in Perth after being released from jail has been locked up again.
Martin McGinlay was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for a decade in 2013 when he was jailed for 18 months.
After being admonished on June 15 this year in connection with another breach of his notification requirements, the 58-year-old was released from prison.
With no fixed abode, McGinlay attended at The Access Place, a homelessness service in Edinburgh, seeking accommodation. He was refused.
Over the following days, he attended at services in Perth as well as in Glasgow, where police eventually caught up with him.
At the Marie Trust in Glasgow a week after his release, McGinlay explained his hunt for housing but he had failed to notify police where he was staying, whether or not he was homeless and where he could reasonably be found.
His solicitor James Laverty said: “This is Kafka-esque, almost.
“He had been moving between Glasgow and Edinburgh in an attempt to obtain accommodation.
“If the police had not arrived until a couple of hours later, it would appear that he probably would have had accommodation at that point.
“He does not hide from his responsibility.
“He was potentially set up to if not fail then set up to find it very difficult to have accommodation.”
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael admonished McGinlay for the breach and imposed an unexpired sentence of 132 days.
He explained that by the time McGinlay was liberated, it would be likely his notification requirements would have expired.
The sheriff said: “I do understand that in this case there’s some mitigation because you were having difficulty.
“Nevertheless, you should have kept the police informed.”
Chip on her shoulder
A writer hurled water over chip shop customers in Fife after becoming fed-up with the noise they were making queuing in a lane outside her home. Author Annie Harrower-Gray, 67, repeatedly targeted customers with threatening and abusive behaviour as they waited in line outside The Wee Chippy in Anstruther.
Killer’s illegal phone
A convicted killer was caught with an unauthorised mobile phone at HMP Perth after guards suspected he was using his X-Box to connect to the internet.
James Demarco, 33, was caught red-handed when officers searched his cell on May 12.
At Perth Sheriff Court, he admitted having the phone.
Demarco was just 18 when he was handed a life sentence in December 2007 for the fatal stabbing of teenager Jamie Ewart in Edinburgh.
He told Perth Sheriff Mark O’Hanlon: “I’ve just been in jail all of my life.
“I have had to do courses on self-help and violence to change the way that I think.
“It’s held me back a wee bit.
“I have to do this course before they consider putting me in an open prison.
“It’s a course that’s a year long, so if everything goes perfectly I will maybe be released in five years time – maybe.”
Demarco said guards had been searching for an illegal chip on the X-Box.
“I had just got the phone, I hadn’t even charged it when they came in,” he said.
He told the court he had already been punished with six months in segregation.
Demarco was given a concurrent sentence of six months imprisonment.
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