A yob is back behind bars – just days after being released from prison – after throwing furniture out of an Aberdeen high-rise window as members of the public walked below.
Angus Hughes, 25, flung a small table, a kitchen drawer and at least one kitchen pot from the 10th storey window of his flat in Stockethill Court in the Mastrick area of the city on Sunday.
Fiscal depute Emma Petersen told Aberdeen Sheriff Court neighbours saw furniture flying past their windows and crashing to the footpath below at around 2.15pm.
“They heard banging and glass being smashed,” she said. “A witness within the block of flats looked out of the window to the ground and saw woods and glass shattered on the ground.
Furniture littered the footpath
“Another was walking past when she was items of furniture and saucepans being thrown from the 10th story window.
“When police attended they saw large quantities of broken glass, a smashed up piece of wooden furniture, and a saucepan lying beside the entrance to the flat.”
Officers also saw Hughes standing by his window talking on the phone. When they went inside his high-rise home they saw his living room window was open and smashed.
The destructive and dangerous spree happened just days after Hughes appeared in court last week and was released from custody.
Defence agent Graeme Murray said Hughes felt “isolated” following his return home after a spell in prison and blamed his behaviour on a change in medication following his release.
‘He had felt very low’
“Before he was discharged from prison he had been receiving a certain dose of certain medication that was controlling his moods in jail,” Mr Murray said.
“But when he was discharged he was given nothing.
“Following his release, he had felt very low in mood again and that’s what led to this latest incident.
“I explained to him this morning the importance of him continuing to take that drug to control his mood swings. He says he hadn’t realised the significance of cutting off that drug so quickly.”
Last week Hughes appeared in court and was sentenced to 120 hours of unpaid work and a 12-month supervision order after he admitted a string of offences that took place last month.
Those included reckless destruction of another’s property, behaving in a threatening and abusive way towards a 73-year-old man and threatening to kill police officers.
Timeline was ‘quite astonishing’
He admitted this latest charge of culpable and reckless conduct when he appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, once again, from custody at HMP Grampian.
Sheriff Robert Vaughan said it was “quite astonishing” how quickly Hughes had acted this way after being handed both his liberation from jail and his community payback order.
Refusing him bail, he added: “You behaved in this manner causing danger to those below this 10th-storey flat by throwing these items.”
He deferred sentencing for tw0 weeks for reports and Hughes, of Stockethill Court, Aberdeen, was remanded in custody meantime.
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