A Dundee man is facing imprisonment after admitting breaking into businesses at industrial estates across the city.
Michael Pattie, 33, was brought from HMP Perth to Dundee Sheriff Court where he admitted the offences of dishonesty and breaching a bail curfew.
Over a three-week period last summer – while already serving a community payback order – he and another man hit four firms:
- May 15, he forced his way into a shipping container at The Style Centre at Dryburgh industrial estate and stole a box of stationery worth £150, breaching curfew;
- June 2, he and an accomplice targeted Sappi Rockwell at West Gourdie industrial estate, stealing a £20 crowbar;
- June 2, both broke into agricultural outfit Grimme at Noble Road, leaving
empty-handed but causing £300 of damage; - June 8, he broke into ASP Pallets at Smeaton Road and stole three Bosch power saws and a Dewalt power drill, worth £610 altogether.
Sheriff Gregor Murray deferred sentencing until April for reports but told remanded Pattie he would get a prison sentence.
Dog threat
A former Royal Marine threatened to set his dog on two people before standing and shouting outside their Rosyth home.
Finn Gilfillan met the two 21-year-olds outside an address in Beech Crescent as they arrived back with their shopping on February 10 this year.
Gilfillan, 44, also of Beech Crescent, appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner.
Prosecutor Rebecca Coakley told the court Gilfillan was standing outside their house with his “Belgian Malamute” dog shouting the pair – a male and a female.
He shouted “do you want me to let him off the lead?” and repeatedly shouted the breed of his dog and threatened to remove the lead so it could attack the female.
The fiscal said: “At this point the dog was pulling away from the accused”.
Ms Coakley said the young woman was scared as the dog looked strong enough to get away.
After they went inside, Gilfillan stood outside in the driveway for “four to five minutes, still shouting towards the house”.
Defence lawyer Stephen Morrison his client spent 15 years in the Royal Marines and sustained significant injuries that affect him.
He was medically discharged in January 2020 and diagnosed with mental health issues, for which he has been getting psychiatric help.
Sheriff Paul Ralph gave him one year of offender supervision as part of a community payback order.
Cannabis farm crime gang
An organised crime gang teamed up with a crooked utilities firm to protect a £21million cannabis operation that stretched from Dundee to Portsmouth. Eight men from England were jailed for a combined 28 years for the scheme that saw electricity supplies diverted to 100 cannabis farms. The company had workers in hi-vis close roads dig up roads and divert power supplies to houses, warehouses and disused shops that were being used to store cannabis farms.
Knife thug
A thug jailed for pulling a knife on people queuing outside a Perth nightclub and attacking a beggar will be released on time served.
One man crimewave Richard Miller threatened revellers at The Venue with an eight-inch kitchen knife in the early hours of November 18 2023.
He did not have the knife when police arrived but CCTV from outside the Venue showed 36-year-old Miller taunting clubbers before disappearing up a side alley, where they found the blade dumped in a bin.
Perth Sheriff Court heard Miller had been remanded in custody since he attacked a beggar and broke his wrist outside the city’s Morrison’s – where he racially abused staff – on January 29 last year.
Miller, of Drumhar Court, also pled guilty to a drunken strop in Mina’s grocery store, North Methven Street, on September 9 2023.
He was refused service because he was so intoxicated and responded by pulling up a plastic sheet and throwing juice and crisps around the store.
He pled guilty to charges of assault, acting in a racially aggravated manner and threatening behaviour.
Sheriff Graham Primrose sentenced him to 26 months – meaning he was released on time served, having been remanded since January last year, but will be monitored as part of a nine month supervised release order.
Contempt
An Angus juror who caused a trial to collapse when she defied the rules to share her own investigation into an accused’s criminal record has been sentenced. Chanel Hogg, 29, of Arbroath, previously admitted contempt of court at Forfar Sheriff Court.
Convicted in absence
A sex attacker who raped a sleeping student in St Andrews was convicted of the crime and placed on the sex offenders register in his absence.
Omed Hassan, 26, of Scott Street, Perth, failed to turn up at the High Court in Edinburgh for the final day of his trial as jurors deliberated.
He denied assaulting the woman while she was asleep and incapable of consent on February 3 2023.
He told the court through a Kurdish interpreter he disputed the woman fell asleep and said: “I was having sex with her while she was awake.”
The court heard the victim woke to find Hassan bearing down on her and having sex with her and others saw her subsequent upset and distress.
Hassan , who has been on bail since February last year, failed to appear at the High Court and the trial judge held it was in the interests of justice for the trial to proceed anyway.
The jury returned their guilty verdict and Lord Ericht told them a warrant was issued for Hassan’s arrest and deferred sentence for the preparation of a background report.
Sentence slammed
An animal welfare group says the “lenient” sentence handed to a terrierman for digging up a Fife badger sett is “little deterrent” against wildlife crime. Former gamekeeper Dylan Boyle was convicted on two charges of interfering with the habitat following a trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court last year and was fined £400 after a sheriff heard he had been of good behaviour.
Five sedation injections
A 22-year-old man needed five sedative injections in hospital after assaulting a police constable and making violent threats at a Dunfermline nightclub.
William McPhee told one officer he was going to “kill him and his children”, Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard.
McPhee, of Bruce Street, Plean, near Stirling, appeared for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to assault and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner at Life nightclub on September 26 2021.
Prosecutor Rebecca Coakley told the court police were called to the nightclub due to concerns for McPhee – then aged 18 – who was unsteady, sweating profusely, shouting and swearing, having apparently taken a substance.
He became aggressive as police spoke to him and told one officer to “f**k his mother” and that he was “going to kill him and his children,” the fiscal said.
He lashed out with his legs and struck a female officer, then spat on her body.
McPhee was taken to Victoria Hospital and “given five injections to sedate him,” the fiscal added.
Defence lawyer Gino Gambale said McPhee was highly intoxicated and it is understood he got into a fight with someone inside the club and came off worse.
He was ejected in a disorientated state and has no recollection.
The lawyer highlighted a recent background report to say his client is engaging well with the supervision element of an existing community order, though has only completed 77 hours of 240 hours of unpaid work he was given.
Sheriff Paul Ralph fined him £400 and gave him offender supervision for one year.
Pensioner assault
A 74-year-old pensioner on a dog walk sexually assaulted a woman in the early hours of the morning. The victim was returning from a night out when she was groped by a complete stranger, John Gray, who asked her “Do you fancy me?”
Brought down power hubs
A drink-driver who careered off a Perth street and brought down a lamppost has been banned for two years and given 100 hours unpaid work.
Aaron Frampton caused other motorists to take evasive action when the street light fell across the carriageway.
The 22-year-old’s Volkswagen Polo continued along the pavement at Crieff Road and smashed into two electricity hubs, detaching them from the ground and exposing live wires, then struck a concrete staircase leading to student flats.
Frampton appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted dangerous driving on Crieff Road, near Perth College, on July 20 last year and driving with excess alcohol (148mgs/ 50).
Frampton was seen walking about, looking “dazed”, after the late night crash and when police arrived, he initially tried to blame a friend who had fled.
Frampton, representing himself in the dock, said he was making payments to repair the lamppost and the power hubs.
Paedophile caught again
A notorious paedophile from Angus could face an extended prison sentence after defying strict court orders and stashing forbidden SIM cards.
John Johnstone, born John Culross, was jailed in 2021 when he shared child abuse images with other twisted paedophiles online.
Two years later, he was jailed again for driving a 14-year-old he groomed online to the brink of suicide.
The serial offender was brought from HMP Perth to Dundee Sheriff Court where he admitted repeatedly flouting a strict Sexual Offences Prevention Order put in place to stop him causing more harm after he had been released from jail.
Prosecutor Duncan MacKenzie told the court the 47-year-old was spotted buying a £20 mobile phone top-up at a Scotmid shop in Brechin on October 10 last year.
Police raided his home in Denburn Court, Brechin, on October 30 and found two SIMs under a carpet.
He had another in his Samsung mobile.
Sheriff Gregor Murray deferred sentencing until next month and noted he was considering imposing an extended sentence, saying: “You’re a highly dangerous man.”
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