Prosecutors have dropped a case against a man accused of assaulting his father who stole cash from his elderly mother.
Matthew Wood, 25, was charged after his 53-year-old dad James took off with £200 from his mother’s sheltered housing home in the middle of the night.
The theft was reported to the police after Matthew discovered the money stuffed down the side of a sofa in his father’s flat in Aberdeen.
When officers caught up with James a few weeks later, he was charged and held in custody until his court appearance the following day.
And his solicitor claimed someone had administered their own justice for the theft of Elizabeth Wood’s money when he turned up in the dock sporting two black eyes.
Matthew also appeared in court charged with an alleged assault to severe injury in connection with the case in January.
However, yesterday the Crown Office revealed that he would not be prosecuted because there was not enough evidence to go ahead with the case.
A Crown Office spokesman said: “The Procurator Fiscal at Aberdeen received a report relating to an incident involving a 25-year-old man said to have occurred in Aberdeen on 24 January 2015.
“The Crown reserves the right to proceed in the future should further evidence become available.”
James admitted stealing the cash from his 83-year-old mother, Elizabeth Wood, when he appeared in at Aberdeen Sheriff Court in January. And his lawyer, Mike Monro, said his client was deeply ashamed of his actions.
The former offshore worker turned to drink after he lost his job trying to care for his son as a single dad when he was a toddler.
He couldn’t remember taking cash from his elderly mother’s purse on December 21 last year because he was an alcoholic.
The father-of-two was placed on a community payback order and told he would have to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the community.
But his mother said a harsher punishment would have had more of an impact on her son and believed he should have spent some time in jail.
She said at the time: “It would maybe straighten him out a bit – especially just now.”