A prisoner attempted to smuggle an illicit SIM card into HMP Perth by hiding it up his bum.
Derek Dragness, jailed for running a street Valium factory, was caught while being transferred from HMP Addiewell.
The 51-year-old appeared at Perth Sheriff Court for sentencing, having previously pled guilty by letter to the September 19 2024 offence.
Fiscal depute Stephanie Paterson said: “The accused was subject to a full body search.
“A cloth bag was seen protruding from his rectum.”
Dragness was asked to remove the suspect item and hand it over.
“It contained a SIM card and several pieces of paper.”
Ms Paterson said she did not know what was on the papers.
Solicitor Mike Tavendale, defending, said Dragness lost his privileges for 14 days when the SIM was recovered.
Dragness, from Glasgow, was jailed for four years and six months in 2021 after police found an industrial unit in Lanarkshire converted into a drugs factory, capable of pumping out hundreds of thousands of “Blue Plague” pills an hour.
His earliest release date was March 2026 and he was sentenced to a further 60 days behind bars for his smuggling attempt.
Sordid business
A Perth business student set up and managed an Only Fans-style account for a schoolgirl and pestered her in class about “sexting sessions” with paying customers. Stuart McClure ran the online service for about eight months and filmed himself having sex with the teenager “for content,” Perth Sheriff Court heard. He had to set up his profit-making scheme on Snapchat because his victim was too young for Only Fans.
Speedy oil rig boss
A BP oil rig boss from Arbroath has been banned from driving after police clocked him doing more than 100mph in his orange BMW.
Lindsay Rennie, 58, appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court to admit driving dangerously on the A92 between Stonehaven and Montrose.
Police chased Rennie – a well safe leader on BP offshore installations – for more than a mile on July 17 last year before he pulled over.
Representing himself in court, Rennie – who also volunteers as a blood bank driver – apologised and said it was a “lapse in concentration”.
Sheriff Peter Grant-Hutchison described the manner and speed of Rennie’s driving as “outrageous”.
Fiscal depute Anne Mann told the court Rennie was as part of his employment and was spotted by officers carrying out static speed checks at the roadside of the A92 between Stonehaven and Montrose, near Catterline.
The laser speed gun used by police clocked Rennie driving at a top speed of 108mph in the 60mph zone.
Rennie pled guilty to a charge of dangerous driving and at a speed that grossly exceeded the speed limit.
Rennie, of Denfield Gardens, was banned for 16 months and fined £640.
Pee’d off bride
A jilted bride peed in a plant pot and left it at her ex-partner’s front door in Lochgelly during a stalking campaign that lasted more than a year. Chloe Bennett, 28, also loitered outside the man’s home, bombarded him with texts and phone calls and once left a bag at the door containing sex toys and a letter addressed to his mother. Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard Bennett reacted poorly to her then-partner “abruptly” calling off their wedding.
Court fire charge
A person has appeared in private in connection with a fire that closed the main Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court building this week.
Fayth Davidson, 21, from Fife, appeared on a petition at the court alleging wilful fireraising.
Davidson made no plea and was committed for further examination and remanded.
The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service said the Whytescauseway building will reopen on Monday after a two-day closure.
Cannabis cultivation
Mark Kulinski, 37, from Montrose appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit producing the cannabis after growing a cultivation in his home.
The court heard officers removed six plants and 51g of herbal substance from his North Esk Road home on August 17 last year.
Solicitor Nick Whelan said: “Mr Kulinski was growing for personal use.”
He explained his client, who has an Asperger Syndrome, was struggling with anxiety difficulties.
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown deferred sentencing until August 7 and ordered Kulinski to be of good behaviour.
‘Urban hunter’ rapist
Fife’s notorious “urban hunter” subjected children to sickening rape ordeals over a four-year period. Brandon Robb, 28, preyed on two little girls and a young boy at locations in Leslie between May 2011 and May 2015. He also terrified two women in the town in incidents which took place between November 2019 and February 2023.
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