A Dundee woman whose dog attacked livestock on Fife farmland has been fined £400.
Michelle Petrie, 37, admitted being the owner of a bull terrier named Rogue which worried livestock – namely a ewe carrying unborn lambs – by attacking while at large on agricultural land at West Lomond Hill, Falkland on May 3 this year.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard a shepherd had seen Petrie with her dog running around and noticed she was very upset because she could not get the dog to come back.
Procurator fiscal depute Katie Williams said the shepherd went looking for the dog, which returned with blood on its mouth.
The fiscal said one ewe was injured.
Petrie, of Haddington Gardens, submitted her guilty plea in absence through a defence lawyer.
Massage therapist sexual assault
A Fife massage therapist has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a female client by touching her breast with his mouth. Mark Robertson, 32, was giving a massage to a woman in her 20s at his home.
Off-shore stress
An oil and gas worker told a court he took a horse tranquilliser before driving to alleviate the stress of the “off-shore lifestyle”.
Gas tester Nairn MacDonald, 20, was caught by police driving “erratically” on the A92 at 1.40am in February this year, hours after taking ketamine.
Defence solicitor Mark Robbins, in mitigation for the accused, told the Dundee Sheriff Court MacDonald had been finding the off-shore lifestyle difficult.
“He admits it was a foolish decision to take drugs earlier that day at a friend’s house.
“He then endeavoured to go and pick up his brother in Dundee later that night.
“He is ashamed of his decision.”
MacDonald, of Arbirlot Road, Arbroath, admitted driving while unfit through drink or drugs on February 17 2023.
He was fined £400 and banned from driving for 12 months.
Hotelier jailed
Shamed hotel boss Douglas Piggot has been jailed for is part in his son’s drug-dealing operation. Piggott, given community service ten days ago for hoarding fake designer gear at his Dalhousie Hotel in Carnoustie, had argued his crime was one of omission by not telling the authorities about his son’s dealing.
Triple rapist re-sentenced
A triple rapist from Comrie, Perthshire, has had his sentence increased.
The Crown appealed Ruaraidh McCartney’s eight-year prison term as being “unduly lenient”.
The Appeal Court has increased his overall sentence from eight to 13 years.
In August McCartney, 30, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of a number of serious sexual offences between 2011 and 2021.
The judge, Lord Alan Summers, was adjudged by the appeal court to have erred in placing so much emphasis on McCartney’s young age when he committed the first crime.
Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain argued this should not have been a sentencing consideration because he was aged “between 25 and 27” at the time of other offences.
Bain also argued Lord Summers failed to properly consider the risk McCartney posed, and that the attacker had shown no remorse.
The original sentence was quashed and judges imposed an extended sentence of 13 years, consisting of a custodial period of 10 years and an extension period of three years.
Caught after clubbing
A clubber who drove home after two nights partying in Perth has been banned from the road. Holly Kemley, 20, was nearly four times the drink-drive limit when she was pulled over by police on Dunkeld Road in the early hours of Sunday October 1.
Nasty neighbour rant
A Kinross-shire man filmed ranting at his neighbours has been ordered to stay out of trouble.
Quentin Julien used homophobic and sexist slurs in a “tirade of abuse” directed at the couple living next door.
Perth Sheriff Court heard that there was a history of bad blood between the households.
Julien, 49, admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, likely to cause fear or alarm, outside his home in St Serf’s Road, Crook of Devon, on August 2.
Fiscal depute Sam Craib said Julien was approached by engineers working nearby, who asked him to move a trailer from outside his house.
“This resulted in him calling out the residents in the next house.
“They looked out of their window and were met by a tirade of abuse.”
The fiscal depute said the woman began videoing the rant on her mobile, while her husband called police.
Solicitor Billy Somerville, defending, said: “The complainers were not blameless here.
“They were not as polite as they could have been but he is the one who is in court and he accepts that he said those things.”
The court heard that Julien had since moved across the street in an effort to get away from the couple.
Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC deference sentence until April next year, to give Julien the chance to prove he can stay out of trouble.
Spy-cam pervert
A convicted sex offender has been caught using a spy cam to take intimate photos. Covertly snapped images were found by police on Perth paedophile Brian Cocker’s mobile phone during a routine home visit.
Pole assault
Simon Duncan, 42, has been jailed for 20 months at Dunfermline Sheriff Court for striking a woman with a metal pole and compressing her neck.
He pled guilty to the assault to severe injury of his then-partner, Elizabeth at an address in Fordell Road, Glenrothes, on March 7 this year.
The court heard the victim told her GP she thought she would be killed as Duncan assaulted and tried to strangle her.
When police visited the property in the early hours of the next morning, they found Duncan within and saw a white metal pole in the hallway with blood on it.
Defence lawyer Melissa Virtue said both Duncan and the woman had been drinking vodka together for most of the day and argued when he told her to leave his home.
Ms Virtue said at one point the woman did leave but came back and argued again and the assault took place in the course of him trying to remove her from the property.
The court heard that the relationship is now over.
Sheriff Charles Lugton jailed Duncan for 20 months, backdated to March 9 when he was first remanded on the matter.
A non-harassment order was also imposed for two years.
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