A pair of failed extortionists threatened to abduct a Fife man’s kids and rape his wife before calling an undertaker to send a hearse to collect a child’s body at his home.
Scott Colville and David McCallum were found guilty of attempting to extort £20,000 from their victim following a trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
The duo, both from Ayr, were also convicted of trying to obtain £5,000 from another man by threatening to assault him and his family.
A jury deliberated for about 45 minutes before returning unanimous guilty verdicts on both charges, which date back to July 2019.
Speaking outside court afterwards, one of the victims said: “We’re elated.
“Justice has been served.
“It’s taken (more than) three years away from our lives and our children’s lives too.
“I’d just like to see them get the same kind of sentence”.
‘It was like a movie’
The man, a roofer from West Fife, said he and his wife were given security locks by police to fit under their door handle and on their letterbox after reporting the threatening phone calls.
His wife said she was given a tracker and still looks over her shoulder in fear when out in the streets.
“We’re elated. Justice has been served.”
— The victim of Colville and McCallum.
At the time, she also used a security code word on the phone whenever communicating with CID to make sure she knew who she was speaking to.
The woman said: “I keep thinking it was like a movie and watching something on TV.”
The couple said at one point they received a phone call from someone at a local funeral director saying they had been told to send a hearse to pick up a child’s body at their address.
‘They crossed the line’
They said they received dozens of threatening calls but did not know why they had been targeted.
The man said: “I think they’ve just been doing something stupid and seeing how they can get more money.
“Why would anyone threaten to rape someone?
“They crossed the line with the children.”
Colville, 43, and McCallum, 39, were found guilty of making phone calls to the man, threatening that unless he paid them £20,000 they would abduct his children and assault him and his family.
The charge stated they had obtained photos of his children and would rape his wife and called a funeral director to falsely arrange collection of a child’s body from his address.
They were also found guilty of making threatening phone calls to another man, saying that unless he paid them £5,000 they would assault him and his family.
The offending took place between July 3 and 8 in 2019.
DNA linked to phones
During the trial, the jury heard recordings of phone calls containing the sick threats.
A pair of Fife-based police officers spoke of recovering four mobile phones and a Sim card from a bin store in Ayr’s Churchill Towers – where Colville was living at the time – as part of their enquiries, on July 12 2019.
The trial heard they had been tipped off by a cleaner in the area who had concerns about two men outside the bin store.
The officers said they had, a short time earlier, been searching McCallum’s property in the town’s Inkerman Court.
During the search they saw McCallum and Colville arriving back from the direction of Churchill Towers but when one of the officers identified himself, Colville “u-turned” and left and McCallum was arrested.
In his closing submissions to the jury, Procurator fiscal depute Alistair McDermid focused on a small Nokia ‘burner’ phone – one of those found by police in the Churchill Towers bin store – which was known to be used in the crime.
A forensic biologist, employed by the Scottish Police Authority, told the trial traces of Colville’s and McCallum’s DNA were found on the buttons.
‘Poppet’ word helped nail accused
Mr McDermid also said the burner was used to phone a taxi firm – recordings of which were also heard by the jury – to book a taxi to and from the address of Colville’s now ex-partner on July 2 2019.
The fiscal said there were similarities in the language used by the person in the taxi calls, specifically use of the word ‘poppet,’ to the language made in one of the calls to a victim.
He also referred to another phone recovered from McCallum’s car which showed a deleted contact for one of the victims.
Mr McDermid said: “That, again, is massively incriminating when taken together with the rest of the circumstances in this case”.
Defence lawyers had argued there was not enough evidence to say there was more than one voice heard in the calls, or that the voices heard were those of Colville or McCallum.
They said different witnesses in the case had described the accents on the calls very differently and that no cell site analysis was done to show where the calls were being made from at the time.
Banned from Fife
Following the guilty verdicts, Sheriff Charles Macnair adjourned sentencing until November 18 for the production of background reports.
The court heard Colville had a previous drugs-related conviction and McCallum had a previous conviction for assault.
Colville and McCallum were released on bail with special conditions.
Colville must not enter Fife and McCallum must not enter Dunfermline and West Fife unless for purposes of attending court.
