Court / Court in brief – 10 November 2021

A FIFTY six year old man who carelessly reversed a tipper truck into a parked car at a Lerwick fuel station has been fined £500 and given five penalty points.

Ronald Young, of Park Road, Sandwick, admitted to committing the offence on the forecourt of Sound Service Station on 5 August this year.

He pleaded guilty to driving without due care or attention by reversing into and damaging the parked car.

Young waited for the vehicle in front of him to drive off and then drove off himself without fulfilling any of his statutory obligations, procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie told Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

He admitted failing to provide his name, address and identification marks of his vehicle, as well as failing to report the accident to a police station or officer within 24 hours.

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank fined him £300 for careless driving and a further £200, along with the penalty points, for failing to stop and provide his details following the incident.

A MAN who admitted possessing small amounts of class A and class B drugs and a round of ammunition has been fined a total of £520.

Twenty one year old Connor Preacher, of Lerwick’s Stanegarth, pleaded guilty to possessing 0.52 grams of class A psychedelic substance psilocin, and two items of confectionary laced with THC oil – the active content of cannabis – with a value of between £10 and £20 each.

He also admitted possessing a .303 round of ammunition designed for military use.

The items were all found after a search warrant was executed at his home address on 12 November last year.

Defence agent Gregor Kelly said his client, who lives alone, had felt “somewhat isolated” during the Covid-19 lockdown last year and had taken “an unhealthy interest in all things cannabis”.

He said Preacher did not know whether the bullet in his possession was real, but had been given it by a friend and had thought it was “a cool thing to have”.

There was no suggestion he intended to procure a firearm, only “some vague intention to have it made into some sort of necklace”.

During lockdown “idle hands were making work for the devil”, the defence agent continued, but since then Preacher has taken up work at a local hotel, is now receiving counselling and feels his mental health is improving.

He was fined £320 for possession prohibited ammunition, for which a forfeiture order was granted, and fined a further £200 for possessing cannabinol.

A TWENTY year old man has had sentence deferred after admitting directing “fairly graphic” sexual comments at a woman in her place of work while he was carrying out unpaid hours as part of a community payback order.

Appearing at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday, Scott Garriock, of Wiltrow, Dunrossness, pleaded guilty offence at a workplace on 11 October this year.

He admitted intentionally and for the purposes of sexual gratification or of humiliating, distressing or alarming the victim, uttering remarks of a sexual nature towards the woman.

Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said Garriock was carrying out unpaid hours as part of his sentence for a “directly analogous” previous offence. The comments, in which he suggested the woman perform a sex act on him, came “out of the blue”.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client accepted the comments were inappropriate, albeit they appeared to upset bystanders more than the complainer herself.

He was taken off the placement following the incident and completed the remainder of his unpaid hours elsewhere.

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank adjourned the case for a criminal justice social work report to be prepared and granted Garriock bail. He is now subject to notification requirements under sexual offences legislation.

A FORTY five year old man from Lerwick who admitted assaulting his former partner has been fined £480 and given a nine-month non-harassment order. 

Christopher Laurenson, of the town’s Braefield, admitted assaulting the woman by pushing her on the body at a Lerwick address on 14 August this year.

He also admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by repeatedly attending her house, refusing to leave when asked to, removing a doorbell camera from her front door, forcing his way into her house, locking the door and shouting on the same date.

Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie told Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday that Laurenson seemed to have “a propensity for this type of behaviour”.

He said Laurenson and the complainer had an “on-off” relationship that had endured for a number of years, but she had ended things two days prior to the incident.

She thought he had left the vicinity after she refused to let him in several times, but when she opened the front door he emerged and pushed her on the upper body, forcing her back into the hallway, before shutting and locking the door behind him.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client accepted he had mistakenly persisted in attempting to speak to her and that he had pushed her, thought he described it as a “brief scuffle” in the doorway.

He said Laurenson, an engineer, wished to remain on friendly terms with the woman but if she did not want to see him he would have to accept that.

MEANWHILE, a 30 year old man has been fined £500 and given six penalty points after admitting to driving without insurance.

Christopher Middleton, of East Voe, Scalloway, pleaded guilty to the “simple and straightforward” offence which took place on an unclassified road at Lerwick’s Burnside on 3 April this year.