A vandal who travelled around in a van randomly smashing windows by firing marbles from a catapult has avoided a jail sentence.
Sammy Young, 24, left a trail of destruction to cars, shops and other commercial properties over a wide area during the course of an afternoon but afterwards could offer no explanation.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard that Young, who was once attacked with an axe, had told officers at the scene that he could hear little birds in his ears saying “Don’t do it”.
Yesterday he was sentenced to a 10-month restriction of liberty order and told to pay compensation of £5,280 the total figure for the damage caused.
Sheriff Charles Macnair told Young it was only the fact he was a first offender that prevented a custodial sentence.
Young, formerly of Ericht Drive, Dunfermline, now living in Blackburn, previously admitted that on August 15 he maliciously fired marbles from a catapult, striking and breaking windows of various premises at locations in Kinross, Kelty, Cowdenbeath, Crossgates and Dunfermline.
These included the Kinross Kilt Company, where a broken window cost £280 to repair. There was also £300 in damage caused to two bus shelters and the Muirs Inn on the town’s High Street.
In Cowdenbeath a solicitor’s office had a £350 window broken; Iceland had a £1,000 window smashed; a butcher’s shop sustained £300 damage; it cost £1,800 to replace a window at the You Know Who shop; and another £1,000 to repair the vandalism at the post office.
When police viewed CCTV images of the properties, on each occasion a white Transit van could be seen slowing down outside before the windows were hit.
Depute fiscal Sarah Lumsden told the court an employee at an ironmonger’s had called the police after the incidents to say a man had come into the shop two days before and bought marbles.
He had then seen the man go into a light van outside and put a marble into a catapult to show a friend. On the day of the vandalism the same man had come back into the shop to buy more marbles.
The court had previously heard that, when detained by police, Young told officers he had “an anger issue”.
He could not remember how many windows he had hit. He said he would let it go, hear the bang and start laughing.
Defence agent Jenny Simpson said her client had suffered serious injuries after being attacked with an axe and afterwards “was feeling very angry with the world in general”.
Young was unemployed, she added, but his father had said he would lend him money for the compensation.