A community football coach who wrote off a £103,000 vehicle as well as her own car in an Angus crash has been fined £210.
Dana Ferrar, of Mearns Drive in Montrose, appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit a reduced charge of careless driving, having initially faced an allegation of dangerous driving.
On July 10 last year, she collided with another vehicle on the A935 Brechin to Montrose Road near Kincraig Farm.
Ferrar, 28, admitted she approached a bend at excessive speed for the prevailing conditions, caused her car to cross onto the opposing carriageway and collided with an oncoming vehicle.
Allegations occupants of both cars were injured were removed from the charge.
Prosecutor Sam Craib said: “The road was closed for some time given the accident.
“The accused complied with all police procedures. Both vehicles were written off.”
Mr Craib noted the six-figure value of the other vehicle involved.
Solicitor Kyra Strachan said: “The road conditions were wet and she accepts she was driving too fast for the road conditions.
“She believes she hit something when she was going around the bend which caused her car to skid.”
As well as being fined, first offender Ferrar was given four penalty points.
Threw teacher
A Dundee school pupil who knocked his teacher unconscious has been given a community-based sentence. Keiran Matthew, 18, narrowly avoided inflicting life-threatening injuries on the woman when he threw her on a concrete floor “like a ragdoll”, then put his feet up on a desk and said: “The stupid cow deserved it.”
Two attacks
A heating and plumbing engineer has been fined £420 after clubbing a man with a bottle in a nightclub and leaving a second victim scarred for life.
Finlay Ross, 27, of Chapelton, near Arbroath, pled guilty to two assaults at Forfar Sheriff Court.
He admitted that on June 25 2023, he assaulted a man at Devito’s Nightclub in Arbroath by striking him on the head with a glass bottle, leaving him injured.
On October 10 2023, he assaulted another man at the bus station at Burnside Drive in Arbroath by repeatedly punching his head, leaving him injured and permanently disfigured.
Prosecutor Sam Craib explained Ross and the first complainer had been arguing on the second date and the other complainer stepped in as peacemaker.
Ross punched him three times to the head, leaving two cuts to his eyebrow and one on his cheek, which needed to be glued shut.
The first offender’s solicitor Billy Rennie said: “He’s not had any trouble with the authorities before.
“The person in charge one was known to him from school. Too much alcohol had been consumed, perhaps by both..
“He’s ashamed of himself for getting himself a criminal record.”
Murder bid
Violent brute Mark Watson, who left a woman with a four-inch throat wound after a vodka-fuelled murder bid in her Dundee home has been hit with an extended prison sentence of 11 years. His victim told police: “He stabbed me everywhere, like in the movies.”
Filling station fuel fraud
A filling station fraudster will use an £11k pay-out from the army to pay compensation, Perth Sheriff Court heard.
Brendan Scanlan hatched an elaborate plot to con the BP Bullionfield station on the A90 out of thousands of pounds worth of fuel.
The 31-year-old illegally used a company card to pay for associates’ diesel and petrol after they all filled up their vehicles in the forecourt at the same time.
The scheme lasted six weeks until bosses found out and reported Scanlan to police.
By that time, he had used the card fraudulently 26 times, getting £8,254 of stolen fuel.
The court heard former soldier Scanlan had been waiting for a pay-out from the army following an accident that affected his hearing.
Scanlan, of Nelson Street, Dundee, left the military about five years ago.
At his sentencing hearing this week, solicitor Bethany Downham confirmed her client had now accepted the award.
After deductions, he will receive just over £8,800.
Ms Downham said Scanlan was working to clear other debts to family members and the HMRC.
Sheriff William Wood deferred sentence for further reports.
Scanlan pled guilty to forming a fraudulent scheme between June 29 and August 8 last year.
Disturbed badgers
A workman who operated a 20-tonne digger on top of a badger sett has been fined £1,800. Matthew Rogers admitted he was reckless to carry out excavation work near the protected habitat on a field belonging to his mother in rural Perthshire.
Hit lamppost
Paul Anderson, 52, of Finedon Terrace, Dundee drunkenly crashed into a lamppost in Forfar and has been banned from the road.
He appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit driving with excess alcohol (109mgs/ 50) on February 11 this year.
Prosecutor Sam Craib said: “The accused’s state was brought to the attention of the police after the accused had crashed his vehicle and come off the road, causing a lamppost to be knocked out of the ground.”
The plant manager’s solicitor Mike Short said: “It’s just over the old limit.”
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown fined Anderson £355 altogether and disqualified him from driving for a year.
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