News / Couper jailed for breach
A REPEAT offender from Lerwick has been sent to prison for four months after being found guilty of breaching a non-harassment order.
Trevor Couper, of Tarland, appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday from custody to deny breaching the order, which was set on 25 November.
The order was set on 25 November when the 22 year old admitted assaulting a former partner at a house in Lerwick’s Sandveien in July.
Couper was told not to contact his victim for two years, however in late December he was charged with entering the woman’s house uninvited.
During a trial, the court heard that Couper walked into the house of his ex-partner’s mother at around 7am in the morning.
He was said to have entered the room of his sleeping ex-girlfriend, before being told by the woman’s current partner, who was also in bed, to leave.
However from the witness stand his friend Ryan Patterson gave Couper an alibi, saying he had been at his house at the time after a party.
Defence agent Tommy Allan questioned whether there was enough proof that the man who entered the dark room was his client, pointing out that Couper’s ex-partner did not know herself who had walked though the door.
After adjourning the “difficult” case for ten minutes, Sheriff Mann ruled that the woman’s current boyfriend was a reliable witness and citing Couper’s hefty criminal record, jailed him for four months.
He backdated the sentence to when Couper first entered custody on 31 December.
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