Allegations a man embezzled cash from a famous fish firm, a vicious assault on a policeman’s pinky and the findings of a probe into Kinnordy killer Steven Dickie’s death were among Tayside and Fife’s court cases on Tuesday.
Fishy goings-on?
A trial has been fixed for a delivery driver accused of embezzling almost £50,000 while working for Arbroath-based fish merchants G&A Spink.
Martin Deas Cook is charged with pocketing the cash after receiving money from seven different chip shops between June 2015 and October 2016.
Cook denies a single charge on indictment that while employed as a delivery and collection driver, he embezzled £49,632 at G&A Spink’s premises, as well as chip shops in Coatbridge, Motherwell, Airdrie, Hamilton, Newton Mearns, Denny, Stonehouse and elsewhere.
The 53-year-old, of Guthrie Crescent, Friockheim, was not present when the case called at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Richard McFarlane fixed a trial for May.
Bit police officer’s pinky
A police officer was bitten as he spent 90 minutes trying to calm an agitated woman at a Fife hospital.
Gemma Masterton sank her teeth into PC David Sexton’s hand at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital.
The 30-year-old was taken the the A&E department after officers were called to her home and found her to be suffering swelling to her head. She also reported she had taken 40 nitrazepam tablets – a drug used to treat insomnia.
At hospital Masterton spent 90 minutes being “uncooperative” and when asked to leave to free up a cubicle she attacked PC Sexton, biting him on the left pinky finger hard enough to break the skin and spitting in his face.
At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court Masterton assaulting another officer at a residential address in Kirkcaldy, behaving in a threatening an abusive manner at the A&E department at Victoria Hospita assaulting PC Sexton and resisting four police officers, on December 6.
Sentence was deferred until April 21 for reports to be obtained.
Safe theft trial
A man is to stand trial accused of stealing a safe containing £16,000 from his father’s flat.
Darren Winters, 38, allegedly committed the theft from an address on Brothock Way, Arbroath, on October 25 2019.
Winters, of the town’s McGregors Walk, faces a single charge of theft at Dundee Sheriff Court.
He pled not guilty and will stand trial in May.
Blood-spattered alleyway
A Kirkcaldy man who left a “vulnerable” warehouse worker with blood streaming down his face while robbing him of his wallet has been jailed.
David Cuthill attacked 52-year-old Paul Smith as he walked home from a night out with a friend on October 23.
He then used Mr Smith’s bank card to make fraudulent contactless payments worth more than £90 at two convenience stores.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard the scene off the crime – an alley between the town’s Fair Isle Road and Lismore Road – was left splattered with blood following the attack.
Cuthill pushed his victim to the ground and pinned him, before making off with his wallet. Mr Smith suffered a cut to his face.
Cuthill, 31, of Lindores Drive, Kirkcaldy, was sentenced to jail for a total of 40 months.
Kinnordy killer
A sheriff revealed Kinnordy killer Steven Dickie had been a drug abuser while behind bars.
The murderer, serving 23 years in Perth Prison for his part in killing Steven Donaldson near Kirriemuir in 2018, killed himself in November 2019, the same day his accomplices Tasmin Glass and Callum Davidson lost their appeals to have their sentences reduced.
