A disgruntled punter staged a heist at his former workplace before getting drunk at a casino and then smashing a stolen van into the front of a Dundee city centre betting shop.
Kyle Clark, 20, stole two vans from his ex-employer, Shore Laminates, and then used one of them to crash into the shop front at the Ladbrokes bookmaker on the city’s Union Street.
Clark then wandered into a nearby police station to confess what he had done and told officers: “Damn the bookies.”
Yesterday at Perth Sheriff Court, Clark, of Gas Brae, Errol, admitted causing more than £12,000 of damage during the act of revenge last summer.
Depute fiscal Chris Macintosh told the court: “He had previously been employed with the flooring company, for three and a half years, but that ended in January 2018.
“On June 17 police received a call from a security alarm at the premises. Police attended and saw the front window of the showroom had been smashed.”
He said the company’s two vans – which had the keys left on the dashboards – had been taken during the raid.
He said CCTV footage showed the raid had been done by someone with inside knowledge and had taken just four minutes.
When the general manager studied the footage he recognised Clark as a former employee who had left under a disciplinary cloud several months earlier.
“At 5am the accused entered the public inquiry office at the police station and told staff he had stolen a vehicle from Shore Laminates and purposely crashed it into Ladbrokes.
“He was very keen to provide information and constantly stated that he had consumed alcohol at the casino prior to driving into the bookmakers.”
Clark told police: “I took that van with the full intention of crashing into a bookmakers. They ruin people’s lives, man.”
Clark, who had abandoned the other van with his friends on the outskirts of Perth, was found to be nearly three times the legal limit when he was breath-tested.
Clark admitted breaking into Shore Laminates in Perth with others on June 17 and stealing a Mercedes Sprinter van and a VW Caddy van.
He admitted driving dangerously and under the influence of alcohol in Union Street, Dundee, on June 18. He admitted mounting the pavement and deliberately smashing into Ladbrokes.
Mr Macintosh told the court residents heard a loud bang which sounded like “an explosion” when Clark hit the front of the betting shop in the early hours of the morning.
“The vehicle had mounted the pavement and driven into the shop front at Ladbrokes. The window was smashed and there was metal and plywood hanging off the wall.”
The prosecutor said the damage to the shop was £2,000, while the van – which was worth in the region of £12,000 pounds – was completely written off.
Clark, who has previous convictions for assault and cocaine use, had sentence deferred for reports and was banned from driving on an interim basis.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said he also wanted to hear the cost of the damage to the Shore Laminates premises in Perth.
