A GANG of teenagers were branded “wicked beyond belief” after targeting steeplejacks, children and motorists with potentially deadly missiles fired from a catapult and BB gun.

The three appeared at Perth Sheriff Court yesterday after admitting taking potshots at various targets in Milnathort last year.

A 12-year-old girl hit in the face with a stone and a pair of steeplejacks working on a church spire were among the targets who escaped serious injury through sheer luck, according to Sheriff Robert McCreadie.

Adam Stirling (17) and Peter McRitchie (19) of Stirling Road, Milnathort, and Robbie Lindsay (17), The Beeches, Glenrothes, pled guilty to a number of offences.

The court heard how Stirling assaulted a 15-year-old girl by firing a BB gun and hitting her in the leg with a pellet in the village’s New Road on September 7, 2008.

He followed up his attack by culpably and recklessly firing a stone from a catapult which hit a 12-year-old girl in Stirling Road on September 25.

The court heard how the missile hit the youngster in the face and although she was not badly hurt, it narrowly missed her eye.

First offender Stirling was also alleged to have been at McRitchie’s Stirling Road flat on October 3 last year when co-accused Lindsay—who is due to join the army in January—culpably and recklessly fired an object from the catapult at a car, endangering its driver and other road users.

The court was told the motorist heard a bang as something struck his door—when he got home he discovered a large dent below the window.

McRitchie also admitted firing objects from his flat that day at the steeplejacks, working in harnesses to fit wire mesh over the steeple windows in South Street.

McRitchie and Lindsay also pled guilty to possessing an offensive weapon, the catapult.

Solicitors for all three said their clients had no adequate explanation for their actions, stating they did not appreciate how dangerous they had been at the time.

Sheriff McCreadie said, “People like these three cause misery in communities across the land by acting in an irresponsible, wicked, childish and stupid manner.

“I can see little or no excuse and certainly no justification for such wicked and irresponsible behaviour.”

He said the “calculated wickedness” towards the steeplejacks “beggars belief” and questioned how much more serious the incidents with the motorist and children may have been.

All three accused, he said, were on the threshold of a prison term but he opted instead to defer sentence for three months for them to be of good behaviour and to get updated reports.

Stirling was ordered to pay £150 compensation to the girl he shot and £200 to the younger girl he hit in the face.