More than 150 child abuse files were discovered on a paedophile’s phone after police raided his Dundee flat.
Jake Prior is now awaiting sentencing after he admitted downloading indecent images of children between February 27 2022 and August 9 2023.
The 29-year-old was found with material featuring girls as young as two at his home on Strathmartine Road, Dundee Sheriff Court was told.
Prosecutor Calum Gordon said: “On August 9 2023, police attended in execution of a search warrant.
“The accused answered, and police explained their attendance. They obtained a number of devices including an iPhone.
“No accessible images were recovered and the accused made no comment or replies to police.”
A total of 150 inaccessible images were found along seven videos with the files linked to the Kik messenger platform.
Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith deferred sentence until October for reports to be prepared after placing him on the sex offenders register.
Rewind reverse
Drunk music fan David Hay was ejected from this summer’s Rewind Festival and almost knocked down a police officer as he attempted to drive off the site. Perth Sheriff Court heard how Hay, after binge drinking, reversed towards a police officer, forcing him to leap out of the way to avoid getting run down.
Cannabis cash grab
A drugs courier caught trying to traffic cannabis worth almost £80,000 to Dundee will have to pay back just £3,000 of his profits.
Lukas Losinski was paid £500 to make trips to England to bring the Class B drug into Dundee.
The city’s sheriff court heard how Losinski was struggling for cash and was recruited by a man called “Damian” in a nightclub.
Police had been monitoring the first offender’s activities and arrested him after raiding his home in Fintry.
Vacuum-sealed bags containing cannabis were found in the property on Findale Street, along with a set of scales in the bedroom.
The total weight of the cannabis discovered was 973.6g, with a maximum potential street value of £78,110.
Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith previously jailed Losinski for 18 months but he returned to the dock for a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Solicitor Doug McConnell said a deal had been struck with prosecutors for £3,000 to be seized from his client.
Losinski will have 12 months to pay, with Mr McConnell saying his client hoped to get back working upon his release from HMP Glenochil in March.
Fled court
A domestic abuser leaped over the dock and fled a Fife court after being told by a sheriff he was getting jailed for choke attacks. Callum Fairgreave ran out of Dunfermline Sheriff Court but was soon caught and led back into the building by two court police officers.
Cleared after dog bit Amazon driver
A woman has been cleared of criminality after her husky bit an Amazon delivery driver in Arbroath.
Lauren Cooper stood trial at Forfar Sheriff Court accused of owning a dog which was dangerously out of control at Horologe Hill in Arbroath on November 9 last year.
Mrs Cooper, 33, was upstairs when delivery driver Ian Strachan, 63, made his way along an alley to her back garden with a parcel.
He threw seven-year-old Echo a biscuit, then put his hand on the latch of the gate.
Echo bit him on the thumb and forefinger.
Mr Strachan was assessed by a plastic surgeon before the wound was stitched up.
He needed a month off work and Mrs Cooper’s solicitor Billy Rennie explained the driver’s solicitors have raised a writ for £25,000 damages.
Mr Strachan said: “When I came around the back, the dog made an effort to get to the fence.
“He wasn’t barking or growling but he also wasn’t wagging his tail or smiling at me.
“I was reaching for the gate.
“It still causes pain and discomfort in the cold, I can’t really close it.”
The court heard Echo had been asleep before Mr Strachan arrived and immediately returned to dozing on the decking after the incident.
Mrs Cooper gave evidence that since the incident, a six-foot fence has been erected along with a new gate, which can only be opened from the inside and a “beware of the dog” sign has been put up.
Sheriff Derek Reekie found Cooper not guilty and said: “I don’t criticise Mr Strachan.
“What is the difficulty for the Crown is that Mr Strachan was very clear that the dog had not in any way behaved aggressively when he approached, prior to him putting his hand on the fence.”
Plea change
A joiner has kept his driving licence despite causing a motorist to suffer multiple broken bones when he hit him after veering onto the wrong side of a road in Fife. Kyle Baxter initially went on trial accused of causing serious injury by dangerous driving but prosecutors ultimately accepted a guilty plea to a reduced charge of careless driving on the second day of a trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
Drugs at school and hospital
A woman who drove off from a Dunfermline school car park under the influence of drugs has been jailed for 14 months and banned from driving for five years.
Lauren Lewis, 42, previously pled guilty at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to driving while unfit to do so through drink or drugs and possessing cocaine at the school on June 19 last year.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court also heard that a few months later, while a hospital patient, Lewis was seen hiding crack cocaine in a bedside drawer before telling staff she was smoking it on the ward.
In total she admitted two charges of driving while unfit to do so through drink or drugs, three of possessing cocaine and two each of driving while disqualified and without insurance.
Sheriff Susan Duff told Lewis: “You present a danger to the public and the only appropriate sentence in your case is one of imprisonment”.
Prosecutor Azrah Yousaf told the court at around 8am, police received a call that Lewis was in the busy school car park “slumped in the driver seat” with the engine running, possibly unconscious.
She tried to drive off but was stopped 500 metres later.
A bag of powder and four uncapped needles were found in the vehicle.
Lewis, of Broomhead Drive, Dunfermline, also admitted a charge of possessing cocaine at Queen Margaret Hospital on December 17 last year.
In an earlier incident in May last year police had seen Lewis “attempting to snort something” and when they stopped her, a bag of cocaine was found in her left sock.
Defence lawyer Alan Davie said Lewis had once gone to university but aspects of her life had fallen out of place and she turned to heavy drug use, with her mental health deteriorating.
Order breaches
A serial sex offender twice breached a strict court order by parking too close to a children’s playpark and speaking to teenage staff at the Fife hotel in which he worked. David Powell has a track record for breaching the conditions of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) imposed on him at Liverpool Crown Court in 2007.
Dock text contempt
Dundee woman Susan Robertson, 48, was found in contempt of court and fined £100 after a sheriff said he was suspicious she was texting while in the dock.
Robertson, of Cotton Road, attended Dundee Sheriff Court for a procedural hearing but had to apologise on her way into the dock for talking loudly on the phone in the vestibule area outside.
Sheriff Gregor Murray said he was “suspicious” Robertson may have been texting while in the dock and she resumed her loud phone call before leaving the courtroom.
She was found in contempt of court and led into the cells.
After being brought back into the dock, her solicitor Alexandra Short said: “She’s very sorry.”
Sheriff Murray, who said he had never experienced a dock texter before, said: “We’re all trying to work here. What you did was both flagrant and disruptive.”
Street valium dealer
John Healey from Dunfermline, caught with thousands “street valium” for dealing, has been jailed for ten months. Police raided his home to find 61,000 etizolam tablets with a potential street value of £12,200 split into six bags.
2nd drink-drive
Drink-driver Robbie Singh, 34, of Mavisbank Gardens, Perth, crashed his car on a remote Kinross-shire road and has been disqualified for three years and fined £400.
He appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted his second drink-driving offence, near Balado in the early hours of August 12.
Solicitor Linda Clark said her client had only been liberated from custody if he agreed to a police condition not to drive.
Sheriff Clair McLachlan told Singh, of Mavisbank Gardens, Perth: “I take account that this was relatively low reading but it is also your second similar offence in four years.”
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