A man once dubbed Scotland’s worst youth offender is back behind bars after being convicted of driving offences in Dundee.
Darren Lauder McKay (28), of Ballantrae Terrace, Dundee, has been described as an institutionalised criminal after first being locked up aged just 10 and having spent 17 of the past 19 years behind bars.
McKay admitted that on January 24, at Tesco South Road, he drove in the car park and in South Road while disqualified. He also admitted driving carelessly in the car park, driving on the wrong side of the road in the face of oncoming traffic.
The court heard staff at the store had seen McKay’s driving on CCTV and had called the police. He was traced through a warrant at a later date.
Solicitor Michael Short told the court McKay had only been released from a four-year prison sentence two days before committing the offences and was also serving a concurrent two-year jail sentence for other matters in England.
”He has spent the past 17 out of 19 years in prison. He always just gets out for a few weeks and is back in again,” Mr Short said.
However, Mr Short said McKay had fallen in love since the incident and he and his partner’s newborn child had effected a big change in him.
He told Sheriff Elizabeth Munro McKay had changed his life around since his first child, who is in a high dependency unit in hospital in Newcastle after suffering difficulties shortly after birth.
He said McKay was aware that custody was inevitable but he asked that any sentence should reflect his guilty plea.
He added that there was an appeal to the parole board in England for his early release, which is to be heard in December.
Sheriff Munro told McKay she would restrict the sentence to one of six months in jail, adding that he had previously been banned from driving for seven years and she would have to increase that, disqualifying him for eight years.A ‘prolific’ offending rateDarren McKay first hit the headlines as a young boy, being convicted of offences at the age of 10. By the age of 18, the notorious teenager managed to rack up a staggering 40 crimes.
In 2002 a Tayside Police source said: ”Darren McKay must be about the worst juvenile offender in Scotland, if not the UK.
”His offending rate since he was only eight has been prolific. The only thing that stops him is the amount of time he spends behind bars.”
McKay is the youngest member of a notorious ”family from hell” from Dundee’s Douglas housing estate. His late father spent more time behind bars than at liberty and his brother Ronald has racked up more than 70 convictions.
Ronald was sentenced to seven years’ jail in 2007 after being convicted of an armed robbery at the Nether Inn pub in Dundee in August 2006.
Sister Ashley also made the headlines when she stole £2,500 from a local bank when she was 11. She made her getaway in a taxi, giving the driver £20 for the short trip to a Dundee housing scheme and telling him to keep the change.
In 2006, Ashley’s two-year-old son Lloyd was found wandering the streets of London after she had gone on holiday to Turkey, leaving him in the care of her brother Ronald.
The toddler was taken into care, before eventually being handed back to his 24-year-old mother.
At one point her mother Betty tried to buy her council house in Ballindean Terrace, Douglas. She challenged the local authority in court, but they successfully obtained an eviction order while she was still a council tenant.
The night before her eviction she held a trashing ”party,” inviting guests to bring sledgehammers and mallets to destroy her home.
Betty’s husband Ronald died in Perth Prison in 1992 from a drugs overdose.