A Royal Navy engineer has been banned from driving after being spotted doing shots after a cricket match in Arbroath, before driving to McDonald’s.
Michael Russell, of Bloomfield Place in Arbroath, appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit driving with excess alcohol (63 mics/22) on August 11 this year.
The 24-year-old first offender had been playing cricket in his hometown and was spotted at the cricket club doing shots with friends before getting in his car.
He had told staff he was not planning to drive and declined their offer to look after his keys.
Police were called and Russell was traced at Westway Retail Park.
His solicitor explained the engineering technician based at Faslane will now no longer be eligible for a promotion in the next 12 months.
She said he had waited an hour after drinking before driving.
Sheriff Neil Kinnear imposed a 12-month driving ban and fined first offender Russell £500, plus a £20 victim surcharge.
He said: “This appears to have been a one-off serious misjudgement. It was nearly three times the limit.
“It was a major miscalculation rather than a minor miscalculation.”
Grad dinner arrest
A former Fife paramedic and university lecturer who hoarded sick photographs of children and sent naked images of a woman to a friend on WhatsApp has avoided a prison sentence. Keith Cameron was arrested at a graduation dinner last summer by police executing a child sexual abuse material warrant.
Dog bite
A dog owner who allowed his rescue pet to “run around” a Glenrothes park before it bit someone – leading to a tetanus injection and course of antibiotics – has been fined £200.
Scott Hoskisson‘s Staffordshire bull terrier lunged towards a man and bit him on the arm at Riverside Park on July 1 last year.
Hoskisson, 59, of Ancrum Court, Glenrothes, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to plead guilty to being the owner of the dangerously out of control dog which, while untethered and unmuzzled, lunged at the man and bit him on the body to his injury.
Prosecutor Isma Mukhtar told the court Ms Mukhtar said Hoskisson was sitting in a car at the time and the complainer asked if the dog, running in the park, belonged to him.
The dog then approached the complainer, who asked if it would bite, to which Hoskisson replied ‘no’ so he put his hand out to pat it.
An initial lunge was dodged but the dog jumped at him again and caught him on the arm, bursting the skin.
Ms Mukhtar said: “The accused was very apologetic, put the dog into the vehicle and left”.
The fiscal depute said the dog has since been put down.
Defence lawyer Chris Sneddon said his client got the dog from a rescue centre and it became apparent there were issues.
The sheriff said he understands it was a difficult dog but noted this is all the more reason it should not have been “running round the park on its own”.
Cleared out account
A Kirkcaldy man left his elderly father with just £1.73 in his bank account after embezzling almost £100,000. Bruce Randall was acting as power of attorney for his father over a three-year period from 2016 to 2019 when he took the money.
Fuel crook no-show
A sheriff has issued a warrant for the arrest of a fraudster who conned a Perthshire petrol station out of hundreds of pounds.
Ben Johnston failed to turn up at Perth Sheriff Court for sentencing, having previously admitted tricking staff at the Bullionfield BP station, near Invergowrie, into giving him free fuel for a year.
The 37-year-old, from Tulloch Court, Dundee, routinely attended to fill up his Dacia Sandero but instead of paying, pretended he had no cash and completed a civic recovery form, giving someone else’s address.
Johnston made about £526 from the scheme between January 22 2023 and January 1 2024.
His solicitor was unable to explain his non-appearance in court and said that background reports prepared for sentencing were also not available.
Dealers locked up
A pair of drug dealers involved in a £142,000 cocaine operation from a Dundee house have been locked up. Almost a kilo of high-purity drug was discovered after police forced their way into Shaun Petrie’s home. He and repeat offender Darren Towns were discovered with various bags and scales in a raid on an Alloway Place property.
Stirlingshire predator
A sex attacker who preyed on three vulnerable young women in Stirlingshire has been locked up for six years and put on the sex offenders list for an indefinite period.
Darren Dennett, 22, targeted victims who were strangers or who he barely knew.
The first was a woman with whom he ended up alone at a property in Polmont in 2020.
He went on to rape her despite her loud protests for him to stop.
The same year in Falkirk, Dennett sexually assaulted a second woman he had only known for around a week.
He raped a 15 year-old girl at a house in Falkirk in 2022.
He was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow after earlier been convicted of the three charges following a trial in Edinburgh.
Lord Harrower stated the 15-year-old rape victim had penned an emotional statement describing the “psychological impact” the attack has had on her, adding he had “no doubt” the other two young women were similarly affected.
He said the sentence would have to be less – given his age – than for an older person.
Scared kids, threatened police
Self-described “psychopath” George Davey, who scared two schoolchildren with a Japanese pull saw before threatening to murder a police officer and his family, has been given a community sentence.
Abuser back behind bars
A violent domestic abuser is back in jail after being caught drink-driving in Dundee city centre.
In 2023, Dragos Henter was locked up after threatening to slice his partner’s face and make her look like The Joker during a four-year campaign of violence.
Henter was assessed as posing a serious risk to women and jailed for 32 months at Dundee Sheriff Court.
In May this year, the 32-year-old had a further 163 days added to his sentence after being found with three illegal SIM cards inside HMP Perth.
Henter has returned to custody after officers caught him drunk behind the wheel on Dundee’s Commercial Street.
Henter, originally from Romania, was more than double the legal limit in a Peugeot 107 on September 7.
He then tried to pervert the course of justice by pretending he was another Romanian national.
Henter appeared from custody to plead guilty to the two charges and Sheriff Garry Sutherland sentenced him to four months in prison.
Brothel trial deserted
Three women accused of occupying a brothel in a Dundee flat have had their case deserted.
Damaris Marte, 43, Desire Padron-Gonzalez, 38, and 57-year-old Maria Almeida were being prosecuted over an allegation they knowingly permitted a Dens Road premises to be used as a brothel between September 1 2022 and January 6 2023.
The case at Dundee Sheriff Court had been subjected to numerous delays and issues over several months.
On the day the trio, who lived in Watford and Valencia, were due to stand trial, the case was deserted pro loco et tempore by Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith.
The Crown Office reserves the right to re-raise criminal proceedings against the women.
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