A Fife man caught with child abuse images and videos told police after being charged: “It’s an addiction”.
Stephen Bargon, 38, appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to plead guilty to taking or permitting to be taken or making indecent photographs of children between October 1 and 28 2022.
Prosecutor Jamie Hilland told the court Bargon, of Southfield Avenue, Ballingry, was traced at work and his phone seized.
After being charged he said: “It’s an addiction”, adding he was going to get help.
Ten images and seven videos containing child sexual exploitation and abuse material were found on the phone.
Of those, six videos and six images were of the most graphic kind (category A).
Sheriff Charles Macnair deferred sentence until January 11 and bail was continued.
Bargon was placed on the Sex Offenders Register meantime.
Bar brawl
A Fife father and son’s overnight visit to Aberdeen led to a violent bar brawl that landed the pair in court on serious assault charges. Bricklayers Wayne Clark, 47, and Matthew Clark, 23, admitted attacking patrons of Siberia Bar and Hotel between Christmas and New Year last year.
Robbed delivery driver
A man who mugged a Dundee delivery driver must pay compensation and has been placed on a drug treatment order.
George Kane was sentenced at Forfar Sheriff Court, having admitted assaulting and robbing the driver on June 27 last year.
Kane, 29, of Alexander Road in Glenrothes, was unemployed and staying in Salvation Army accommodation in Dundee at the time.
At 10.45pm, the driver pulled into Park Avenue to make his final delivery of the night.
He slowed to look for the right address and saw a woman in the street.
As he got out his car, she spoke to him and they had a “heated” exchange.
He made his way to the boot to collect his delivery and Kane struck him to the right side of the face, knocking off his glasses and causing a superficial cut above his eye.
Kane leaned into the car and grabbed a small plastic bag containing around £18.
The court heard Kane has a number of previous convictions for violence, disorder, drugs, fireraising and breaching court orders.
Sheriff Krista Johnston ordered him to pay £300 compensation and imposed an 18-month supervision order and a drug treatment order.
Revenge attack
A vengeful husband who torched a BMW on a Fife street after learning another man was having an affair with his wife has been jailed. Darren Reape bought petrol at a filling station in Cowdenbeath before setting the car alight in St Ronans Gardens, Crosshill, on June 1 last year.
Rapist bail breach
An Angus rapist will face no further punishment after breaching his bail curfew and lying to police about it.
John Dutch appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court via a video link to HMP Polmont, having recently been jailed for eight years.
Dutch, 20, of Glenprosen Street in Montrose, had been on bail with an 8pm to 7am curfew.
Police pulled over a car in which he was the passenger on the night of January 15 last year.
He denied being John Dutch and told police his name was Owen but the driver confirmed his identity.
Dutch, who had no previous convictions at the time, admitted breaching his bail curfew and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Sheriff Krista Johnston admonished him.
A trial ended with him being found guilty of rape, sexual assault, breaching bail and road traffic offences.
Lord Mulholland said of one woman: “You treated her as though she were a piece of rubbish that you discarded when you were finished with her.”
He said: “You preyed on young, vulnerable and impressionable teenage girls.”
Snared by hunters
Dundee man Charles Tippet has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register after admitting sending a picture of his private parts to a person he believed was only 12. The 50-year-old was snared by a decoy account operated online by Shatter The Silence vigilante paedophile hunters.
Assault trial
Perth groundworker John Ferguson, 39, has been convicted of attacking his former partner at his Tulloch home.
At Perth Sheriff Court, he had denied assaulting the woman at his home in Bracken Brae on May 1 this year.
After a trial, he was found guilty of a reduced charge of repeatedly kicking the woman to her injury.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said: “How this started is not at all clear.
“What I’m quite satisfied of, beyond reasonable doubt, is at some point, [the complainer] is down on the ground and you decide that you are going to take something out on her.”
Having heard that Ferguson had spent the equivalent of a 68-day sentence on remand, Sheriff Foulis admonished him but made a six month non-harassment order.
Killer unmasked
Read The Courier’s exclusive background report on Tayside wife killer John Lizanec – paranoia, violence and his whining to police after he was finally caught.
For more local court content visit our dedicated page or join us on Facebook.
