A bitter family feud in the Fife countryside led to a 50-year-old woman attacking a car with a baseball bat.
The car was being driven by the partner of the attacker’s brother and there were children in the vehicle.
As a result, Sally Ann McMillan, 50, of Newton Farm Cottage, Lochgelly, appeared in the dock at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
She admitted that on August 18 last year at Newton Farm she struck the window of a car with a baseball bat and then pursued the vehicle with the bat.
Depute fiscal Laura McManus said Kelly Hargreaves was in her car with her sister and children when the vehicle was attacked.
She said: “The background is a family dispute. Kelly Hargreaves is the partner of the accused’s brother.”
Defence solicitor Michael Foster said the farm steading had been purchased by his client’s parents. One cottage had been given to her and the other to her brother.
There had been a fall-out after their mother’s funeral.
He said that before this incident his client had been assaulted and her car vandalised, causing £1,500 worth of damage.
He added that his client had the baseball bat with her that day to protect her pet dog from another dog.
She felt that the car had been driven at her and reacted.
The parties involved continue to be neighbours but there has been no reconciliation.
“There is not peace but perhaps it could be described as neutrality,” said the solicitor.
Sheriff Alastair Brown deferred sentence on McMillan until April 15 for good behaviour.