A Perth teenager was caught with a stash of obscene child abuse photos, including images of sadism.
Ghazi Shah appeared at the city’s sheriff court and admitted having indecent images between November 26 2021 and April 13 2022.
Police raided the 18-year-old’s home following intelligence that he may have been downloading illicit material and recovered his mobile phone.
The court heard of the images found, 16 were category A, at the top end of the obscenity scale.
They featured children as young as three and included sex with adults, sadism and sexual posing.
Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC deferred sentence for background reports.
Paedo jailed
Paedophile motorsports business owner Colin Bandeen, 63, from Angus, who befriended families before using their children as his “playthings” has been jailed for nearly 12 years. The pervert from Kirriemuir was convicted last month of sexually abusing four children and behaving indecently towards two others.
Hogmanay horror
A Montrose boyfriend has admitted attacking his ex on holiday in Aviemore and outside a Dundee pub on Hogmanay.
Teenager Benjamin Gilyeat appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit a campaign of domestic abuse between November 2023 and January 2024.
This included pinning his partner to a bed and shouting at her while on holiday in the Highland town.
It also included offending outside Captain’s Cabin in Dundee on December 31 last year, where he dragged her from the premises, shouted and swore at her, referred to her in a derogatory way, grabbed her by the throat and pulled off her false eyelashes.
The 19-year-old, of Wittenberg Gardens also loitered outside the woman’s home, shouted at her and threatened her, including by text.
Solicitor Nick Markowski said the first offender has diagnoses of autism and ADHD.
He added their relationship is over.
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown deferred sentencing until February 13 for Gilyeat to be of good behaviour.
Sentencing delayed
A judge delayed the sentencing of two depraved killers for the murder and rape of a drugged and defenceless young Fife father to get further reports on the pair. Dylan Brister and Cameron Allan are facing life sentences after they spiked Calum Simpson’s drinks, leaving him unconscious, before subjecting him to a horrifying sexual assault recorded on a mobile phone, then murdering him.
Act of ‘bravado’
A teenage Navy hopeful threatened to paralyse an autistic man in a row over concert tickets.
Samuel Rankine, 19, of Cumbernauld, left court without punishment after a sheriff said his “act of bravado” should not ruin his life.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard Rankine’s girlfriend had purchased the tickets for herself and the complainer but following the end of their friendship the man demanded the return on his money, resulting in Rankine stepping in.
In a message on instagram he told the man, “Listen to me right now you wee autistic f**k, see if you show up here again I promise you you are gonna leave paralysed mate.”
After further obscenities, he warned: “I’m twice the f**king size of you mate.”
Rankine pled guilty to behaving in an aggravated threatening or abusive manner from a property in Kincardine on March 9 2024.
Solicitor Caroline McGrath said Rankine’s girlfriend had been left “extremely shaken and upset” by the earlier confrontation with the complainer and that Rankine had reacted to that.
She said: “He was guided by his girlfriend’s obvious distress.
“He had no intention of carrying out the threats but intended it should keep (the complainer) away.”
She said Rankine was currently working for Ede and Ravencroft, the company that had made the sheriff’s own black gown, but had applied to join the Royal Navy.
Sheriff Susan Duff said: “I don’t accept that this stupid act of bravado should affect the rest of your life” and admonished him.
Officer cleared over image
A suspended Angus police sergeant with a deleted child abuse image on his phone has been cleared of criminality after a trial, in which a fellow officer described his internet use as “concerning”. Colin Cunningham, 51, was accused of taking or making an indecent image of a child. Forfar Sheriff Court heard the image of a girl aged between 12 and 14 had been deleted from his phone by the time police executed a search warrant at his home. Cunningham said he could not remember downloading or deleting the image and was found not guilty.
Bullying row
A pregnant woman headbutted a teenage girl in a row over bullying in Fife.
Tahina Prentice, 38, hit the girl – who was just 14 at the time – as she walked with friends.
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court Prentice was convicted of two counts of assault in the city on November 10 2022 and a further charge of behaving in a threatening abusive manner.
Prentice told the court she encountered the complainer and her friends and said they were “sticking the middle finger up and shouting.”
She said she tried to ignore it but her relative was getting upset and threats were then made by the group.
She continued: “I said, ‘we’ve been to the police and we’ve been to the school, I’m going to speak to them myself’.”
She admitted becoming agitated but blamed it on a combination of “pregnancy hormones” and frustration at the situation.
She denied the headbutt and grabbing and pushing a girl in another assault.
Sheriff Susan Duff said she found both teenage witnesses to be “credible”, adding: “You are clearly seen in the video to be antagonistic”.
Prentice, of Fife, will be sentenced at at later date.
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