An on-duty taxi driver who knocked down a blind man on the road has been fined £300 and had six penalty points imposed on his licence.
Andrew Anderson, 43, of Taylor Street, Methil, failed to see the pedestrian as he turned his vehicle into Kirkcaldy’s Park View on October 28 2021.
Fiscal depute Lee-Anne Hannan told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court Anderson took an early right turn to avoid a bus parked in his own lane so was potentially on the wrong side of the road when he collided with the pedestrian, knocking him to the ground.
Ms Hannan said the victim, who is blind in the right eye and has limited vision in the left and uses a guide dog, suffered a cut to the back of the head.
Defence lawyer Robert MacDonald confirmed Anderson, who admitted careless driving, was not carrying a passenger and was within the speed limit.
He said it appeared to be a momentary lack of concentration by the first offender.
Sheriff Garry Sutherland said the collision was a combination of Anderson not paying attention and other factors, including the pedestrian not seeing or hearing the vehicle.
Murderer freedom bid fails
Colyn Evans, who strangled 16-year-old Karen Dewar in Tayport in 2005 and dumped her body in a bin has failed in a bid for freedom. Evans was jailed for murder for a minimum of 17 years in 2005 and 1919 magazine has reported he failed in his first bid for parole.
Police officer still suffering from assault
A drinker with a string of previous convictions has been jailed after an “appalling” assault on two police officers outside a busy Dundee pub.
Gary Marr, 29, admitted assaulting PC Fox MacLachlan and Sergeant Christopher Grieve on Dundee’s Seagate, near the Market bar, in July last year.
On bail at the time, he punched one of the officers on the chest twice and caused the other to sprain a finger, which is still to fully heal, Dundee Sheriff Court heard.
Defence solicitor Jane Caird, said her client – who admitted the July 16 2022 assault – has developed a “bad drinking problem since around 2020”, on his release from prison for another matter.
She suggested a supervision order to help treat his drinking problem would be the best disposal.
However, Sheriff Alastair Carmichael took a dim view of Marr’s crimes and jailed him for five months.
He said: “You showed appalling behaviour toward these police officers, one of whom is still in pain.”
Robbery row
A Dundee man claims he attacked another in a city hostel only after he had been drugged and robbed of his prison wages by him first. At Dundee Sheriff Court, Sheriff Paul Brown refused to accept Nicky McKenzie’s explanation at face value and fixed a proof in mitigation.
Crooked MP has ‘essentially nil’ to pay back
Prosecutors seeking £130,000 from former MP Natalie McGarry have been told the amount she will be able to pay back is “essentially nil.”
McGarry, 41, from Inverkeithing, was jailed for two years at Glasgow Sheriff Court in June 2022 for embezzling £19,974 from Women for Independence and £4,661 from the Glasgow Regional Association of the SNP.
McGarry – who still denies the accusations – had been the SNP MP for Glasgow East between 2015 and 2017.
McGarry was recently unsuccessful in overturning her conviction on appeal but had four months cut from her sentence.
A proceeds of crime hearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court heard there is still no breakdown of the “benefit figure” – the amount of benefit from criminal conduct.
Advocate Allan MacLeod, defending, said: “I do not know what the next version will say but there is a low available amount.
“The available amount is essentially nil – that is not the issue – it is the benefit figure which seems to increase and increase”
The case will recall early next month.
Killer detained
Fife restaurant worker Abdul Foyez, who stabbed a colleague to death because he thought he was being poisoned, has been detained at the State Hospital in Carstairs. Foyez killed Mohammed Salim Uddin by knifing him in the stomach at the Gulshan Tandoori in Inverkeithing on September 17 2021. He was acquitted of murder after the Crown accepted he was suffering from diminished mental responsibility.
Rapist jailed for further offending
A convicted Fife rapist who admitted having sex with two underage girls he contacted on Snapchat has been jailed for three years.
Jordan Dunn, 22, had sex with the 13 and a 14-year-old girls while he was on bail.
Dunn is already serving six and a half years in prison as part of a ten-year extended sentence for raping two girls, imposed in December 2021 following a High Court trial.
Dunn was convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl at a flat in Lochgelly on two occasions – in September and October 2019 – and raping another girl at the same flat in July of that year.
He is on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely.
Last month, he admitted having sex and engaging in sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl at a Dunfermline park on various occasions in November 2019 and having sex with a 14-year-old girl at his former home in Methil‘s Sea Road on an occasion between July and September 2021.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard Dunn made contact with the 13-year-old on Snapchat and told her he was 15. In reality he was aged 18 or 19 at the time.
They met in Dunfermline and had sex in a park.
He met the 14-year-old in Dunfermline as well but took her back to Methil for sex in his flat.
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