A mail order fraudster from Dunfemline has admitted operating a scam which netted her almost £7,000.
Lindsay Currie, 52, pled guilty by letter at the city’s sheriff court to obtaining £6,624.45 by fraud between January 1 and March 11 this year.
She pretended to be another person when she opened catalogues with Argos, Fashion World Mail Order and Lowell Gratton.
Using credit provided by the companies, she fraudulently obtained items worth the four-figure sum.
Sheriff Susan Duff ordered a social work report and ordered first offender Currie, of Macbeth Road, to be present for sentencing on September 4.
Hard-up aristocrat
A hard-up aristocrat from Glamis has been allowed to avoid a totting-up driving ban so he can work delivering takeaway food for Just Eat. Clan chief-in-waiting Graham Roderick Laurence Oliphant of Oliphant Younger convinced a court a ban would cause him “exceptional hardship”.
Left children crying
A Forfar brawler has wound up in court after lashing out over alleged racist abuse at a children’s football tournament in Dundee.
Shezad Ali , 31, of Maviscroft, previously pled guilty to the assault at Manhattan Works on Dundonald Street on January 21 this year.
He returned to the dock at Forfar Sheriff Court to be sentenced for assaulting a man by attempting to punch him and then successfully punching him on the face.
Fiscal depute Kate Scarborough said: “It was at a friendly football tournament at the sports pitches at the locus.
“It was a children’s event. The children were around eight years of age. Family were invited to go and watch the match.
“There was a verbal altercation between the accused and some of the other people watching at the field.
“The accused swung punches towards the witness’s head.
He did also punch him more than once on the face.
“Children became upset and were crying at the accused’s conduct.”
Ali’s solicitor Julita Blazniak told the court he reacted that way after being called a “black monkey” by the witness.
Ali was also due to be sentenced for breaching bail conditions imposed to protect his partner in connection with domestic proceedings.
Sheriff Garry Sutherland deferred sentencing on both matters until October 16.
Spitting mad
A drunk woman spat in a police officer’s face after she was prevented from driving away from a Dundee house party. Danielle Gaffar lashed out after a quick-thinking resident on Blyth Street pulled the keys out of a car’s ignition.
Not guilty
An ice hockey player accused of performing a sex act in front of two children has been cleared by a sheriff who heard he was merely waxing his stick in his flat.
Shaun Gilchrist, 33, was charged with standing naked at the window in the Kirkton area of Dundee when two teenage girls walking past believed they saw him masturbating.
However, the Dundee Devils player told a trial he had been waxing and taping his hockey stick at the time of the incident on February 29.
He said a shoulder injury meant he was doing it at an odd angle.
In cross-examination, prosecutor Michael Robertson asked Gilchrist: “Do you accept having a hockey stick between your legs, applying wax, may look like masturbating?”
Gilchrist replied: “I guess, yeah. I don’t understand how they could see into the window.
“They must be mistaken because I wasn’t doing it.”
His partner provided evidence to cast doubt on the girls’ version of events due to the height of the window, which was also covered by a voile curtain.
Sheriff McFarlane told Gilchrist: “I suspect these girls saw something but not what they said they saw.
“There’s a number of issues about their evidence that concern me.
“The distance, the height of the windows and what they saw.
“On that basis, I find you not guilty of this charge.”
Lucky escape
An inebriated man who fell after taking a shortcut across railway tracks in Fife was roused by the conductor from an approaching train. Gary Marshall pled guilty to trespassing on Network Rail land in close proximity to tracks in Cowdenbeath.
Threat report chaos
Stewart McPhee, 39, attacked an officer during a chaotic February 10 visit to Perth police station at Barrack Street to report a threat being made against him.
Fiscal depute Duncan McKenzie told Perth Sheriff Court: “He was acting in an erratic manner.
“As his behaviour escalated, he was arrested.
“Mr McPhee then kicked out at Sergeant Paul Smith.”
Solicitor Linda Clark, defending, said: “Someone had threatened him and he did the right thing by reporting it to the police.
“But because of his behaviour, the police were not keen on having him in the front office.”
McPhee, of Kestral Way, Perth, pled guilty to assault and was fined £300
Sheriff Alison McKay told him: “The police have a hard enough job to do without having to deal with things like this.”
Crooked manager
The boss of a Tayside Halfords branch swindled the company out of £90,000 with a crooked cashing-up scam. Manager Gary Ridgewell pocketed cash from the till and doctored customer coupons to balance the books.
Street assault
A man who attacked a lone victim walking through Dunfermline has been jailed.
Gary Rankine previously admitted assaulting Stephen Irvine on October 26 last year on Alexandra Street by repeatedly punching his head and body.
Rankine, of Canon Lynch Court in Dunfermline, was on bail at the time.
Sheriff Susan Duff imposed 35 weeks imprisonment, noting Rankine’s previous analogous conviction.
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