A Perth youth who drunkenly hurled a rock over a flyover, endangering the lives of a young family, has been locked up for three years.
Paul Booth committed the reckless offence last Christmas while on bail for badly burning a pregnant teen, the High Court in Edinburgh heard.
Defence lawyers representing the 20-year-old Asperger’s sufferer pleaded for leniency blaming a mix of bravado, alcohol and psychological problems for the crimes.
However, judge Lord Bannatyne sentenced him to detention in a young offender’s institution.
Mother-of-six Lynn Bruce, who had been delivering gifts with her two young sons when the missile shattered her windscreen on the A9, told The Courier ”justice had been done”.
”He could have left my older kids without a mum I hope he uses the time inside to think long and hard about that fact,” said the 37-year-old from the Craigie area of Perth.
”It still haunts me to this day that myself and my babies could have been killed because of some thug’s mindless game. If I’d been in a smaller car, had been a split second further forward or if the rock had hit my side and I had veered off the road the outcome could have been far graver.”
The self-employed cleaner revealed she had recently received a handwritten letter from Booth, in which he asked for forgiveness.
In the note he apologised for any ”trauma” he had caused, saying: ”I am glad nobody was injured because I would not be able to live with myself.”
He added that he was ”genuinely sorry” and was keen to sort his life out but Ms Bruce believes they are ”just words”.
”Drink or no drink, he must have known what he was doing when he threw the stone off the bridge. He must have thought about it he was 19, not nine.
”I felt nothing when I opened up the letter. If he had sent it soon after it all happened that might have been different but it just seems like he was ticking boxes for a shorter sentence.”
Continued…
Booth had been at a leisure complex on Perth’s Old Gallow’s Road on the afternoon of December 21, leaving to walk home at around 6pm. Crossing the overpass a short time later, he picked up a large slab of concrete and threw it on to the rush-hour carriageway below.
Ms Bruce had been driving her Toyota Landcruiser at about 60mph when it was hit, but she managed to maintain control until she could find a safe place to stop.
Glass rained down on the passenger side where her 13-month-old son Kyle was sleeping but thankfully he was protected by his car seat. Her two-year-old, Aiden, who was sitting in the back of the vehicle, suffered nightmares for a number of weeks.
The court was also told of the horrific injuries suffered by 17-year-old Melissa Sangster on August 13 last year.
Booth, then of Fairfield Avenue, Perth, set fire to a handbag containing aerosols after an angry phonecall with a girl he lived with.
The court heard that as it went up in flames, Booth dropped it on the ground outside a block of flats at Ballantine Place, before using it to light a cigarette.
However the canister then exploded, spraying Ms Sangster’s bare legs with blazing debris.
Her friends put her under a shower and gave her first aid but she suffered burns to about 25% of her skin surface, leaving permanent scars on her right leg and left shoulder. Her face and hands escaped the blast but she was in hospital for three weeks.
Defence advocate Ronnie Renucci said his client, who also suffers from attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s, had not intended any harm in either case but realised the consequences could have been more serious.
At an earlier hearing, Booth admitted two charges of reckless conduct.
Mr Renucci said the unemployed 20-year-old regretted what he had done. When he threw the rock, said the lawyer: ”There may have been an element of bravado and his judgment was clouded by drink.”