Four friends had to abandon their car in terror after a thug launched a smoke bomb through their window.
David Cargill and his passengers found themselves engulfed in a thick red fog as they sat at traffic lights in the centre of Perth.
They then panicked as the incendiary device burst into flame, with the city’s sheriff court told they had all been placed in danger of serious injury.
Mr Cargill pulled his car off the road before he and his passengers exited, one bravely scooping up the smoke bomb to stamp it out on the pavement.
The device – around the size of a flare – had been thrown by 22-year-old Callum Torbet from the passenger seat of a taxi.
He launched the lit device from car to car as the two vehicles sat side by side at lights in Atholl Street.
It struck Mr Cargill on the body and tumbled into the rear of the car, prompting full blown panic among its occupants.
Depute fiscal Claire Kennedy described the incident as a calculated attack on the car, saying: “While the cars were stopped side by side, the accused pulled the smoke bomb from his pocket and threw it into the driver’s window of the car opposite.
“It hit Mr Cargill and bounced into the back of the car, from where it began to fill the car with red smoke, obscuring the vision of all inside.
“The driver pulled the car over and all four occupants quickly got out. The smoke bomb had by this point caught alight.
“One of the passengers threw it out of the car and it was stamped out.”
Solicitor Paul Ralph told the court the offence was “perhaps not quite as bad as it initially appears” as he attempted to persuade Sheriff William Wood the act had not been deliberate.
“Mr Torbet was in the passenger seat of a taxi,” he said.
“Friends were in the rear of the car and it was one of those individuals that initially had the smoke bomb.
“They have been playing with the device and it has fallen into the footwell of the taxi and started to go off.”
The agent said his client had made efforts to defuse the device, but had only succeeded in making matters worse.
“He picked it up and threw it out of the window but straight into Mr Cargill’s car as it was sitting alongside at the lights,” Mr Ralph said.
“He is of course extremely fortunate that no-one was injured.”
Torbet, of Newhouse Place in Perth, admitted culpably and recklessly igniting a smoke bomb and throwing it through the open window of a car in Perth’s Atholl Street on May 6 this year.
Sheriff Wood chose not to comment on Torbet’s claims and simply told him: “This was a rather strange incident. It was definitely unusual.
“I will defer sentence upon you for social work reports and to find out the extent of the damage your actions caused. It may have been substantial.”
The sheriff also asked for confirmation that the four victims had not suffered any ill effects as a result of the smoke.
Sentence was deferred until January 3 next year.
