A Dunfermline woman left a young child unsupervised, which allowed her to fall out of a first floor window.
Kelly Debruijn pled guilty to wilfully neglecting and exposing the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering and injury to health at an address in Dunfermline, between July 27 and August 12 last year.
Debruijn allowed the child to stay in cluttered and unhygienic conditions in a property with a fly infestation.
She also failed to provide the girl with clean and adequate bedding and food.
Court papers state she also left the child unsupervised with a first floor window open, thereby causing her to climb up to the window and fall out onto the ground below.
Debruijn, 31, of Broomhead Drive, had no legal representation at Dunfermline Sheriff Court and tendered the guilty plea herself.
Sheriff Neil Bowie deferred sentencing on the first offender until December 6 to obtain background reports and encouraged her to get a solicitor.
Sheriff’s shame
A former Dundee sheriff has escaped being placed on the Sex Offenders Register after he was caught making shocking sexual and racist comments during an online video call.
Alistair Duff, 69, was taking part in a WebEx conference call during a training session with Justice of the Peace members when he was overheard chatting to a friend on his mobile phone regarding a pornographic movie.
Duff, of Edinburgh, was heard to make sexual comments including “Do you like to see a wee one bended over and struggling in school shoes, white socks and cotton panties” and using the racist term “p**i”.
He was fined but there was not deemed to be any significant sexual element to his actions.
Single-push assault
A care worker knocked a woman unconscious after pushing her to the ground outside a Dundee nightclub.
Milan McIntosh, 19, of Wentworth Drive, Dundee, had been on an evening out with friends at Pout on St Andrews Street when she pushed over the woman, who knocked her head on the ground.
McIntosh now faces losing her job, according to her solicitor, after she admitted the May 8 assault at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Depute fiscal Larissa Milligan told the court the pair were outside Pout at 2.30 when “an altercation developed between them.”
It involved a single push and the victim has no recollection of it.
Defence solicitor Jane Caird explained McIntosh’s job as a care assistant was at risk, depending on the punishment handed to her by Sheriff Mark Thorley.
She said the victim had “essentially been ‘badgering’ her and her friends in the club for about an hour”.
She added: “She was not overly drunk. She is regretful of the steps she took.
“She tells me it was more of a ‘back-off’ push.”
Sheriff Thorley deferred sentence for six months, for McIntosh to be of good behaviour.
He warned her because of the injury it was a “serious” matter.
Laughing abuser
A callous construction boss who laughed when he was confronted about repeatedly abusing a six-year-old girl has been jailed for 27 months. William Hamilton, 57, branded claims against him “laughable” as officers continued to probe him for information. He later claimed he had a “nervous laugh”.
Admitted gym stalking charges
A man has pled guilty to stalking a woman at a Fife Pure Gym and elsewhere in Scotland for over six months.
Edmund Neidlinger, 45, appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to admit engaging in a course of conduct which caused the woman fear or alarm, between March 1 and September 14 this year.
Court papers state Neidlinger continually stared at her, repeatedly messaged her on social media, created new social media accounts to contact her and posted messages about her on his social media accounts.
He continued to contact her knowing she had blocked him and repeatedly contacted her on her business social media accounts.
Neidlinger was originally also charged with repeatedly attending at her place of work when he knew she would be there and monitoring her movements at her work but these elements were deleted from the charge.
Sheriff Neil Bowie deferred sentence on Neidlinger, of Abbey Street, High Valleyfield, until December 6 to obtain background reports due to the nature of the convictions and a previous conviction.
Neidlinger’s bail was continued and prosecutor Brogan Moffat said the Crown would be moving to make a non-harassment order.
Stabbed telegraph pole
Zak Paterson, 32, from Kinghorn appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to plead guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner at Cardenden Road, Cardenden, on March 3 last year, when he was caught on camera near a shop repeatedly stabbing a telephone post with a knife.
Procurator fiscal depute Brogan Moffat said a witness arriving at 7am to open a shop was informed by a delivery driver there was a knife – 13cm long with an 11cm handle – lodged into a wooden telephone pole close to the entrance.
Police were contacted and a member of staff reviewed CCTV, which showed Paterson exiting the store and removing the knife from his clothing.
The fiscal continued: “It captured him seemingly repeatedly using it to stab the wooden telephone post”.
Defence lawyer Heather Morrison said Paterson’s offending is linked to drug use.
The solicitor said Paterson advised he had found the knife, taken it off the street, put it in his pocket and thought the best place to leave it was in the wooden post.
Ms Morrison said: “The repeated stabbing is from him being him unable to get it to stick first time around but he does appreciate this would be alarming to ordinary passers by”.
The lawyer said a year and a half has passed without her client using any substances.
Ms Morrison suggested obtaining background reports to identify any potential suitable alternatives to custody.
Sheriff Neil Bowie deferred sentence on Paterson, of Castle Rigg, to December 6 to obtain those reports and bail was continued.
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