It’s always a busy Thursday round-up.
Micro-phone in boxers
A prisoner caught with a mini mobile phone inside his cell at HMP Perth has been handed more jail time.
Paul Johnston pled guilty to having the illicit phone in his cell on June 19, 2019.
At 6.10pm, prison officers carried out a search after a mobile phone detector outside his cell had activated.
A full body search was conducted and a small mobile fell from the 30-year-old’s boxer shorts.
Labelled a “micro-phone” by fiscal depute Joanne Ritchie, the device was described as being “easily concealed.”
The device was forfeited and Sheriff Lindsay Foulis imprisoned Johnston, of Jute Street in Aberdeen, for 18 weeks.
‘Sharks in the water’
Company director Douglas Lammie stole industrial plant including a digger and roller from sites in Perthshire, Edinburgh Airport and a cemetery. His solicitor told Perth Sheriff Court “sharks in the water” were circling his debt-laden business.
Crash and racist comments
A man who drunkenly crashed into a lamp post in Glenrothes went on to make racist remarks at hospital.
Ryan Henderson, 27, was taken to Victoria Hospital after being bitten on the arm by a police dog at the scene of his Buckfast-fuelled collision.
Henderson appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to admit to driving while unfit through drink or drugs.
He was found at his car, which he had crashed into a streetlamp on the Preston Roundabout in Glenrothes on November 15.
The court heard his vehicle had sustained significant damage and the lamp post and debris were lying on the ground.
As witnesses approached, Henderson tried to leave but soon returned to his vehicle and tried to put the keys back in the ignition but the vehicle was “not driveable.”
Police were contacted and while Henderson, of Megginch Place in Glenrothes, sustained no injuries from the crash, he was bitten by a police dog.
He was taken to hospital in Kirkcaldy where he made racist comments about Asian people who were present and issued threats at a police officer he knew.
Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith deferred sentence and labelled Henderson’s conduct at the hospital as “deplorable” and “wholly unacceptable.”
Compensation slammed
A Perthshire couple slammed the compensation order imposed on Grant Hunter after a boundary dispute spilled over. Hunter, 38, from Abernethy was also placed on a community payback order for his part in the row, as well as struggling with police investigating it.
Canna-bin
Police uncovered a cannabis factory when they raided a ground-floor flat in Alyth.
Nearly £2,000 worth of plants and herbs were found at David Nixon’s St Ninian’s Terrace home, growing in tents.
Nixon, 50, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted producing a controlled drug at his address on October 27, 2020.
Fiscal depute Joanne Ritchie said a police sweep of the flat uncovered seven plants and containers of herbal cannabis, worth just under £1,770 in total.
Nixon told police the cannabis was for his own personal use.
Solicitor Mike Tavendale said: “There was no hint of supply here.
“Some of the items had been bagged up and were about to be thrown out.”
Asked by Sheriff Lindsay Foulis why the substance was stored in bags, Mr Tavendale said: “If he had just put them in his green lid bin, they would have been easily discoverable.”
The sheriff told Nixon: “There is no suggestion of supply, so I will deal with his matter purely on the basis of production.
“A significant amount of cannabis was potentially being produced here.”
Nixon was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
Police assault
Serving Dundee police officer Darren Moore was ordered to pay a child compensation after admitting assaulting him. Moore claimed he was acting in self-defence because the 13-year-old was the aggressor. A sheriff did not believe him.
Remanded for rape
Lewis Ewan Petrie Smith, 27, from Inverkeilor, will be sentenced next month after being found guilty of multiple charges in the Arbroath and Montrose areas between June 2016 and October 2019.
Joiner Smith was found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh of raping a woman who was intoxicated and incapable of giving consent in June 2019.
He attacked her on two other occasions, sexually assaulting her on one.
was found guilty of assaulting a pre-teen girl, including biting her nose and compressing her neck.
He spat on her, force-fed her and forced her to eat faeces.
The jury also found him guilty of engaging in a course of conduct which was likely to cause a woman fear or alarm.
On a separate occasion, he grabbed her by her clothing and pushed her, to her injury.
Smith was placed on the Sex Offenders Register and remanded in custody.
In case you missed it…
Wednesday round-up — ‘I don’t drink and drive’
Tuesday round-up — Headbutts and benefit cuts
Monday round-up — Scissors, smoke and solicitor strike
Friday round-up — Bumper-to-bumper car crime
Jail for tourist who chased terrified girlfriend through Perthshire hotel
The full caseload of the Dundee Crime and Courts Team can be found here.
