A podiatrist is facing claims that he was caught rummaging through a 98-year-old woman’s drawers and examining her underwear.
Philip Dryden allegedly committed the offence while working on October 27 at an address in Dundee.
It is alleged Dryden, 80, behaved in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm.
He allegedly entered a bedroom without the knowledge of the woman, who was asleep in another room.
Dryden, of Broughty Ferry, allegedly opened and looked through drawers before handling and examining an item of underwear.
His case at Dundee Sheriff Court was continued to a case management hearing next month.
Sex pest jailed
A sex pest has finally been sentenced after being too drunk in the dock last week. The sheriff said he was left with no alternative than prison after former soldier Scott Wilson failed to comply with a community payback order imposed after he sexually assaulted nurses in Ninewells. The sexual assault of a teenage boy in a bus in Fife was also dealt with.
5-times limit
A five-times-the-limit drink-driver was caught on camera hitting a woman’s car in Fife.
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court, Grant Kempson, 53, pled guilty to driving a Skoda Fabia with excess alcohol (108mics/ 22) and failing to stop after the collision in Cardenden Road on March 3 this year.
The court heard the owner of the car – which was written off – heard a loud bang and her alarm sounding and went out to find scrapes along the offside of the car, tyre damage and a smashed wing mirror.
The collision was caught on a neighbour’s CCTV.
Kempson, of Cardenden, returned to the scene and denied hitting the car but another CCTV on a nearby shop showed he had been driving.
Sentence was deferred until May 14.
Amazon ‘enterprise’
Amazon worker Michael England was rumbled stealing iPhones while he worked at the online retailer’s Dunfermline depot. The picker at the giant fulfilment centre – taking customer orders on a handset and collecting them for distribution – claimed he was part of an “enterprise” at the warehouse, moving the phones to a less secure area.
‘Horrified’ by attack
A Fife man left his ex partner “horrified” when he launched an attack on her new boyfriend in her bedroom.
John Hutchison, 35, of Main Street, Thornton, repeatedly punched the man on the head and kicked him on the body.
Police later found blood spattered on the wall.
Hutchison pled guilty at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to assault to injury and a second assault by pushing his former partner at an address in Bowhill, Cardenden, on January 20 this year.
Prosecutor Amy Robertson told the court the couple’s relationship ended in October 2022 but Hutchison still had a front door key to the woman’s home.
The fiscal depute said the woman had advised Hutchison by phone on January 19 her new partner would be there and he said he did not want this if his children were present.
The woman and her boyfriend were woken the next day by the front door being opened, before Hutchison entered their bedroom and tried to assault the man.
He pushed away his ex-partner when she tried to prevent the assault and lunged towards (the man) and struck him once to the face.”
Ms Robertson said the woman was “horrified at what she was seeing” and police were called after Hutchison left.
The fiscal depute said the woman was uninjured and the man had a bruised and swollen nose and needed painkillers.
Defence lawyer Danielle Stringer said unemployed Hutchison had been drinking excessively on the day and through the night and was becoming “more and more irate” about the situation.
Sheriff Garry Sutherland told Hutchison his behaviour was “absolutely unacceptable” but acknowledged his early guilty plea and sentenced him to 140 hours of unpaid work and a year of offender supervision.
He also banned Hutchison from contacting his ex-partner for three years.
Firebomber’s prison weapon
An Angus firebomber has had his jail time extended after he was caught with a deadly weapon made out of a toothbrush in his Perth Prison cell. Daniel McAleney had armed himself with the handcrafted blade amid claims of a “currency of violence” at the prison. He was locked up in 2021 for his role in a firebomb attack at a block of flats in Arbroath.
‘Silly’ boy
A “silly” boy who assaulted a woman at a Fife bus station has been told to do 20 hours of unpaid work.
The 17-year-old, who is too young to be named, previously pled guilty to striking the woman on the head with his hand at Glenrothes bus station on May 16 last year.
He appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for sentencing and prosecutor Amy Robertson said two woman had tried chatting to the boy but it became clear he was under the influence and he hit one to the right side of her face and fled.
The fiscal depute said that on July 6, in relation to an unrelated incident, the teenager was traced “heavily under the influence of alcohol on a bus on which he had fallen asleep”.
He was arrested on the outstanding assault case.
Defence lawyer Kerr Sneddon said, in different circumstances the assault was a “cuff round the head” and could have been seen as jovial but the female was smaller than him.
Mr Sneddon said there was “no chance of injury” as it was not forceful.
Sheriff Peter Anderson told the boy: “You are a silly young person and now in the real world and have to start behaving like a responsible adult.
“You can not go around, even in jest if it was that, or even a drunken gesture, laying hands on anyone else.”
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