A 46-year-old Glenrothes bike thief must appear personally in the dock to be sentenced.
Craig McClure, of Jenny Gray Path in Glenrothes, was not at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court when his case called but submitted a letter admitting stealing the bike from outside the Co-op on the town’s Woodside Way on February 6 this year.
McClure, who has offended before, was ordered to appear personally on September 3.
Graduation bust
A disgraced Fife paramedic and university lecturer was arrested at a graduation dinner by police executing a child sexual abuse material warrant. Keith Cameron’s careers and marriage are now in tatters after he admitted hoarding twisted photographs of naked girls, some as young as five.
Angus rapist jailed
A chef who attacked and raped a young woman the first time he met her was jailed for five years and three months.
Aaron Hill was 18 when attacked his victim after they both had been drinking in Arbroath.
Judge Lord Braid told Hill at the High Court in Edinburgh: “On the complainer’s evidence it must, or ought to, have been obvious to you that she was not consenting.”
He said a victim statement spoke of the lasting impact of the sex crimes, which included anxiety and depression.
Hill, now 20, formerly of Newton Avenue, Arbroath, had denied charges at an earlier trial but was found guilty of assaulting and orally raping the woman in the town on July 23 2022.
Lord Braid made a non-harassment order banning him from contacting or attempting to contact the victim for 15 years and placed him on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
Defence solicitor advocate Jim Stephenson said his client suffered adverse childhood experiences but went on to work successfully as a chef.
He had asked the court to take into account the offender’s age and good work record in deciding on an appropriate sentence.
Puppy row attack
A dog walker left a 70-year-old man with a broken nose and eye socket after believing he kicked his puppy Bruno, in Camperdown Park. Denis Griffin claimed he was acting in self-defence after confronting his victim but was found guilty of assault after a trial.
Uncompleted work
A hairdresser from Fife has been ordered to complete a very specific amount of unpaid work after breaching a community payback order imposed for assaulting two bouncers at a Dunfermline nightclub and threatening to kill police and rape their children.
Liam Baxter, who believes he was spiked on the night, was being escorted from Lourenzos when he lashed out at the door staff, then spat at them while being restrained on the ground.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court previously heard he then made repeated vile threats of sexual violence towards police officers.
In July 2022, Baxter was sentenced to a six-month curfew and placed on a community payback order (CPO) with 18 months supervision and 200 hours of unpaid work.
Now of Rutherglen, Baxter was brought back to Dunfermline Sheriff Court from custody this week and admitted breaching the CPO.
The court heard Baxter had completed 191 hours and 20 minutes of the unpaid work.
His solicitor Aime Allan said: “Mr Baxter was in a particularly chaotic period.”
Sheriff Susan Duff ordered the 23-year-old to complete his outstanding hours – plus more to mark the breach – and placed him back under supervision for another six months.
She gave him three months to complete the new unpaid work sentence of 108 hours and 40 minutes.
Storm Babet house smash
An 86-year-old man had a miraculous escape when an out-of-control car smashed into his house and ploughed through his living room wall during Storm Babet. The pensioner had gone to bed early and was asleep upstairs when teenage careless driver Emil Pencierzynski careered into the front of his semi-detached property in Crieff.
Fled from petrol station
A drink-driver accelerated away from a Crieff petrol station after being asked by a concerned employee to surrender his keys.
Staff at the High Street store could smell booze when Peter McCready approached the counter, Perth Sheriff Court heard.
The shop assistant requested the 24-year-old leave his car keys with her and he told her he had left them in the vehicle and would fetch them.
When he climbed into the Renault Clio and drove off, the worker called police, who found the car parked outside McCready’s home in Menteith Crescent, Callander.
He was spotted nearby, “rambling incoherently” and arrested.
He pled guilty to drink-driving (92mics/ 22) in Crieff and on the A85 at Wester Foulis.
Sheriff Alison McKay told him: “This was four times the limit and you put yourself and others at risk.”
McCready was banned from driving for three years and must stay at home between 7pm and 7am each night as part of a three-month restriction of liberty order.
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