Our reporters have been sitting in courtrooms across the north and north-east this week and covered a wide variety of cases.
Dealer who flung £5,000 drugs from window
A dealer who flung Class A drugs out a living room window during a police raid has been spared jail but told the alternative he’s been given is “not the easy option”.
Stuart Mitchell has been ordered to carry out an 18-month drug treatment and testing order and was warned if he doesn’t take this seriously he’ll be back behind bars.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court previously heard how Mitchell panicked when police raided his female friend’s Peterhead home to execute an early-morning drugs search warrant and threw cocaine and heroin worth around £5,000 into the back garden.
Teen walked into stranger’s Aberdeen home and assaulted pair
A drunken teen marched into a stranger’s Aberdeen home, ordered a father and son to “get out” and then rained punches down on the terrified pair.
Ryan Fraser brazenly strolled into the flat in Stoneyton Terrace uninvited and shouted to the residents: “What are you doing in my flat?”
The father and son occupants of the property tried to calm the 19-year-old down and explain to him that he was in the wrong flat, but he would not listen.
Building society worker embezzled almost £10,000
An Elgin woman who was found guilty of embezzling almost £10,000 from a building society is still refusing to accept that she committed the crime.
Kaitlyn Brown maintains she didn’t illegally take £9,762 from the town’s Nationwide branch while she was employed there and is in no position to repay the money.
The 22-year-old was convicted after a trial at Elgin Sheriff Court of swindling the funds between August 31 and November 15 2019.
Keith guesthouse voyeur secretly filmed women undressing
A guesthouse owner set up a secret spy camera hidden within a bedside alarm clock so he could film women undressing, a court has heard.
Police discovered footage of three different female victims when they raided Liam Elliott’s property in Keith on another matter, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
The 35-year-old voyeur also had a video of a couple engaged in sexual activity – which police established had been consensually filmed but Elliott had somehow obtained without their knowledge or consent.
Kitchen fitter jailed for running £500,000 cannabis operation
A businessman was jailed for five years today after a police surveillance operation recovered drugs worth more than £500,000 on the streets.
A judge told Serafin Gaik, 31, that illicit drugs wreck lives and blight communities as she jailed him for his role in the cannabis supply operation.
Lady Poole jailed Gaik’s co-accused Logan MacLeod for 27 months and Pawel Chmielewski for two years when the trio appeared for sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Man who sent nude photo to child goes to jail after breaching order
A Turriff pervert who sent indecent pictures of himself to a teenage girl has been jailed after he failed to carry out an order imposed by the court.
Stewart Barclay, 21, appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court in February last year and admitted sending graphic sexual images to the 14-year-old girl on several occasions on Snapchat.
The court heard that he befriended her on the social media app before sending several naked pictures of himself.
He also requested that she send pictures in return, which the girl declined.
‘Gardeners’ admit growing £421,000 of cannabis inside abandoned hotel
Four Albanian men have admitted being the “gardeners” behind a £400,000 cannabis farm set up within a disused hotel in Aboyne.
The huge drug cultivation operation was discovered within the abandoned Huntly Arms Hotel when an architect turned up there to do work earlier this year.
He found the locks changed and once inside followed a trail of cables from the old reception down to the basement, where 520 cannabis plants were growing under dozens of lights.
The old ballroom, meanwhile, played host to boxes upon boxes of soil stacked on top of each other.
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Aberdeen man in court over £115,000 County Lines drug raids
A man from Aberdeen has appeared in the dock after police seized £115,000 worth of Class A drugs in a cross-border operation.
Three people were arrested after officers carried out seven search warrants and raids at addresses in Aberdeen and the Wallasey area of Liverpool on Friday, May 19.
Quantities of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine with a total estimated street value of over £115,000 were recovered as part of the County Lines crackdown.
Oil worker stalked married woman he first met on flight to Aberdeen
An oil company geologist has admitted stalking a woman he met on a flight from London to Aberdeen.
Costel-Valeriu Ignat got chatting to his victim on the flight as they worked in similar professions, but it wasn’t long before his attention became too much.
Despite an initial period of friendship, the married woman decided she no longer wanted Ignat, 32, in her life.
Girl, 17, attacked woman who refused to buy her alcohol
A 17-year-old girl attacked and injured a woman who refused to buy alcohol for her in Aberdeen.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons because of her age, was part of a larger group “causing trouble and drinking” at Aberdeen’s Union Square bus station.
And when the woman refused to purchase drinks for her, the teenager, a childcare student, became violent.
The terrifying assault left the woman requiring stitches at hospital to close a gash to her nose.
Man, 23, admits raping and murdering mum Jill Barclay
A 23-year-old man today admitted raping an Aberdeen mum Jill Barclay and then burning her alive to cover up the evidence.
Rhys Bennett, from Fife, pled guilty to a single charge of assault, rape and murder.
He also admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice by setting fire to the mum-of-two in order to conceal evidence.
Exclusive: Who is Rhys Bennett? The two faces of Jill Barclay’s killer
Rhys Bennett, who is no stranger to ridicule and rejection, has always been an outsider – teased and bullied for being different.
Born in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Jill Barclay’s killer moved to Angus when he was six and spent most of his life on a farm near Edzell.
As a schoolboy at Brechin High School, Bennett displayed an aptitude for maths and physics but his distinctive appearance drew the attention of fellow pupils and he became the target of bullying.
Serial domestic abuser’s campaign of violence against new partner
A serial domestic abuser began mistreating his new girlfriend just months after his wife reported him to the police.
Peter Groat’s nine-month tirade of violence against his new partner saw him smashing items around the house and punching holes in walls, Peterhead Sheriff Court was told.
The 23-year-old has now been told to carry out a domestic abuse rehabilitation programme deemed for “his own good and for the good of other female partners”.
16-year-old boy took friends for joyride and then crashed into car
A teenager who took friends on a joyride in someone else’s broken-down car wound up in hospital after crashing into another vehicle.
The then 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was incriminated by a video that was shot by one of his passengers as he drove around Forres.
The video showed him driving at speed and going around a roundabout the wrong way before crashing into another vehicle as smoke and airbags hissed around him.
He left the scene of the accident but was eventually traced.
Gordonstoun dinner lady spared roads ban
A dinner lady at one of the country’s most prestigious private schools ran other cars off the road during an unsafe overtake on the A96, a court has heard.
Gordonstoun kitchen worker Eliza Monart misjudged the manoeuvre on the Inverness-to-Aberdeen road and caused four cars to make emergency stops and two of them swerve onto the verge to avoid a crash.
The 51-year-old failed to stop, instead flashing the hazard lights of her red Mazda X5 as if by way of apology, Elgin Sheriff Court was told.
Keith man guilty of downloading child abuse videos of newborn babies
A man has been found guilty of downloading hundreds of indecent videos of children – including some that featured newborn babies.
David Small, 25, was convicted of having more than 33 hours of child abuse footage hidden in a secret app on his Samsung Galaxy mobile phone after a trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
The jury heard Small was caught by police with more than 750 videos and upwards of 80 images of children.
Man shot victim with sniper rifle-style pellet gun in row over money
A man who shot his victim with a sniper rifle-style pellet gun in a row over money has been ordered to carry out unpaid work.
Albert Damean armed himself with the dangerous weapon to confront a man over a disagreement while two friends rained punches on him.
The 23-year-old narrowly dodged a custodial sentence, despite the terrifying incident leaving his victim with a pellet too dangerously close to an artery to remove.
Graffiti vandal targeted police car in city centre spraying spree
A graffiti vandal has been handed unpaid work after a spraying spree through Aberdeen city centre that left walls, shops, bus shelters and even a police car daubed in paint.
William Shanks’s late-night trail of damage amounted to no less than 14 charges of vandalism, which he had now admitted at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
The offences took place in the early hours of April 14 last year with the 23-year-old first targeting a wall at Gibb Tools on King Street, along with a bus stop, parking meter and phone box on the same street.
Shanks also spray-painted walls at Rice ‘n’ Spice, James Mutch Ltd and Morrisons on King Street.
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Man smashed Inverness woman’s window with axe
A police firearms unit was dispatched to deal with a man who smashed a neighbour’s window with an axe, a court has heard.
Gavin Hampton then grabbed shards of broken glass, cutting his own hands, during the frightening incident in Gilbert Street, Inverness.
He later made threats against police officers who arrested him and became abusive with hospital staff trying to treat him, causing a scene in front of children at Raigmore Hospital’s A&E department.
Woman handed road ban after driving ‘exceptionally slow’
A late-night driver who was seen swerving all over the road at an “excessively slow” speed was almost five times the legal drink-drive limit, a court has heard.
Malgorzata Rzeznik’s car was spotted crawling along the road by police who pulled her over and found her with slurred speech and blurry eyes.
Fiscal depute Sean Ambrose told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that Rzeznik’s red Honda Civic was spotted on CCTV being driven in an erratic manner along Union Grove and Willowbank Road.
Teen who wants to be mechanic is banned after causing crash
A teenager who “wants to be a mechanic” has been banned from the roads after he drove his car at high speed with no headlights on.
Kai Daniels, 18, appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and admitted driving his BMW dangerously around a roundabout the wrong way, which resulted in a crash.
The court heard that he drove onto the wrong side of the road before attempting to negotiate a roundabout where he crashed into the other car.
Man ‘burst’ nose of witness who challenged him over car vandalism
A yob caught smashing a car window assaulted a man who challenged him, leaving him with a “burst” nose.
Daniel McKay was spotted throwing an object through a passenger window of a car on Invercauld Road in Aberdeen, smashing the glass.
But when a member of the public asked him why he’d done it and threatened to contact the police, the 20-year-old walked up and punched him in the face.
The blow left his victim with a “burst” nose.
Pair fined for ‘out of character’ violent assaults on pubgoer
A pair of revellers who attacked a man after a “misunderstanding” in an Aberdeen bar have each been fined.
Scott Montgomery punched his victim 10 times to the face until he fell to the ground.
Montgomery, 32, had to be dragged off the man by co-accused Jaime Cook, 30, in the Bon Accord Street bar during the fallout at 12.10am on April 27, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
Fine for attacker who disfigured man with homemade weapon
An attacker who fashioned a homemade weapon that left a man permanently scarred has been spared jail.
Scott Lesbirel, 44, turned up at the man’s home in Lochside Court, Ullapool, with a bit of metal attached to a string.
When a fight broke out he swung it at his victim, striking him to the back of the head and causing an injury that needed stitching and left a permanent scar.
Jail for man who assaulted victim in Elgin pub after pool game bust-up
A post-funeral assault which was sparked by a row over a game of pool has landed a man with 10 months behind bars.
Patrick Stewart, described by his solicitor as “a man who shouldn’t drink”, punched his victim in the face during the unprovoked assault at the Victoria Bar in Elgin.
He had gone there for drinks with family following a funeral on Feburary 8 this year, the town’s sheriff court was told.
Aberdeen man who tried to import Glock jailed for 37 months
A man who tried to acquire a deadly gun and bullets after claiming he ran up a drug debt on the dark web was jailed for 37 months today.
A judge told Robin Baxter that but for the timely intervention of the authorities, an illegal firearm and bullets could have been passed on to criminals.
Lord Richardson said such weapons were used to kill, maim and terrorise and Baxter was “at the very least shamefully reckless” as to how it was going to be used.
Ross County player shown red card after admitting driving offences
A Scottish Premiership player was shown the red card by a sheriff for taking his mum’s car without permission and then driving the wrong way down a one-way street.
Owura Edwards, a winger on loan from Bristol City to Ross County, was banned from the road for six months and fined a total of £740 after admitting four road traffic offences at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Ian Cruickshank was told that the 22-year-old was spotted in a Ford Fiesta by a police patrol on Station Road, Dingwall, on Hogmanay last year.
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