A crook went on a one-man crime spree — raiding a pensioner’s home and a college — before leading police on a high-speed chase and crashing into a house.
Ronald McKay, 38, stole valuable items from an elderly man’s home and nicked thousands of pounds and a van from Dundee and Angus College.
McKay — who was jailed in 2007 after he was involved in an armed robbery on the Nether Inn pub on Nethergate — appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court.
He admitted six charges against him relating to offences that happened between September 17 and October 4 this year.
They included three thefts by housebreaking, two vehicle thefts and a charge of careless driving.
McKay, a prisoner at Perth, first broke into the Dundee and Angus College building on Gardyne Road and stole various items including several tins and containers of cash with £4,500 inside, eight medallions, paperwork, two iPads, and four sets of car keys, on September 17.
The following day, he returned to the same site and stole a van.
A police appeal was made at the time but it later emerged that the van had been recovered.
It’s understood the medals McKay stole had been on loan to the college from their owner.
The court heard that a couple of weeks later, on October 2, McKay broke into a home occupied by a 70-year-old man at Woodlands, Kinnaird — between Dundee and Perth.
From there he stole “a quantity of sapphires, opals, rings, cufflinks, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, four watches, cash and coins of various currencies”.
The next day McKay broke into a locker at Carnoustie Leisure Centre, Links Parade, and stole car keys and a mobile phone — then stole a car from the car park.
Later that same day police saw him driving the stolen vehicle at West Queen Street in Broughty Ferry and signalled for him to stop, but McKay accelerated off.
The court heard how police then pursued with lights and sirens activated as McKay drove on the wrong side of the road, crossed a junction without slowing and drove at “excessive speed “along West Queen Street, Bayfield Road and Albert Road.
He eventually lost control of the car when he crashed it into a house at Brackenbrae.
Sentence was deferred until January 23 for reports.
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