A man has admitted lobbing a burger at a 12-year-old child at a Perth playpark.
Anthony Smith appeared at the city’s sheriff court and pled guilty to assaulting the youngster on October 1 last year.
He threw the snack at the girl, striking her on the body, while at a children’s park on Rannoch Road.
Smith will be sentenced in June.
Catfish conman
A twisted catfish conman who duped four Dundee women into sending nude videos and images has been sentenced to register as a sex offender for five years. Robi MacBain – a former soldier and convicted child abuser – stole an English man’s identity to create a bogus Facebook and Tinder persona. His victims believed they were talking to a man named ‘Craig Thomson’ – a tall, bearded, ex-marine from Broughty Ferry who worked in security.
Chased over pool game
A Burntisland fencer has been fined for chasing a man down the street while swinging a hammer in a tiff about whose turn it was on the pub pool table.
Raymond Murrie fetched the dangerous tool from his work van after a squabble at The Silver Tassie pub at 11.30pm on May 31 last year.
Prosecutor Amy Robertson told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court witness at Burntisland’s High Street saw Murrie and his victim arguing.
Murrie went to a van and opened the rear doors, she said.
“The accused took out a hammer and began to chase (the complainer) down the High Street, swinging the hammer towards him.”
He avoided being struck and escaped down an alley and Murrie, 39, left in his work van.
In court, Murrie admitted committing a breach of the peace and his solicitor Martin McGuire said: “It’s a bit of a strange situation.
“Mr Murrie and others has been in a public house playing pool. There had been an argument about pool and whose order it was to play.
“Mr McMillan stated to police: ‘The guy was embarrassing, he’s an old man.’
Murrie, of High Street, Kinghorn, was fined £320 altogether.
Shares swindler
A fraudster who lied to a Piperdam couple about having hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of stocks swindled them out of £25,000 in a fake shares scam. Former salesman Sebastian Ward produced a phoney certificate which purported to show he had 1,000,000 shares in janitorial firm Mitie and gave his victims the impression he was a successful trader with access to discount prices. In fact, his portfolio had not yet reached its record high of £13.
Holocaust denier jailed
A Holocaust denier who hid out in Fife, working under a false name as a tutor, has been jailed for a year.
Vincent Reynouard, 56, was arrested in Anstruther in November 2022 and eventually brought to justice in France after a lengthy extradition battle made its way through the court.
The 56-year-old was wanted for inciting hatred and denying the occurrence of the Holocaust.
He was jailed in Paris after being found guilty of denying war crimes, denying crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred.
Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990 and Reynouard has previous convictions from 2020 and 2021, for which he was give prison sentences.
He was also ordered to pay damages of €10,000 – more than £8,300.
Five bottles of Buckfast
A sex pest football fan downed five bottles of Buckfast before groping a Perth bar worker and clubbing another man over the head with a guitar. Neil Rodgers laughed after sexually assaulting the hotel worker, having consumed more than a litre-and-a-half of the tonic wine while with fellow Celtic supporters.
Admonished for slap
A grandfather who slapped his estranged wife in the street and called her derogatory names has been convicted but avoided punishment.
James Taylor, 57, spotted his former partner with a new boyfriend as they waited for a taxi on Perth’s George Street.
Taylor stopped his car, got out and approached the couple.
Fiscal Michael Robertson told Perth Sheriff Court Taylor then slapped his ex with an open hand to her left cheek.
He called her a “slut” and a “slapper,” before getting back in his car and driving off.
When he was later traced by police, he told them: “I’m not a bad guy.”
Defence agent Linda Clark said the couple had been married for 28 years and her client had had suspicions his estranged wife had been with another man.
“He had gone to speak to the third party when his wife intervened. He regrets acting in this way.”
Taylor, of Edinburgh Road, Perth, pled guilty to domestically-aggravated charges of assault and threatening behaviour, committed on August 11 last year.
Sheriff Neil Kinnear told Taylor: “I am going to take a slightly unusual step here.
“You are a first offender and although I don’t condone what you did, you accepted almost immediately that you acted in appropriately.
“I accept you were upset by the end of your long term relationship. I am persuaded to admonish you.”
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