A woman who was cleared of plotting to have the wedding ring finger of her ex-husband’s new wife chopped off has been fined for trying to silence a witness in the trial.
Deborah Donald, also known as Leiper or Paton, was accused of hatching a plan to have drug addicts break into Danielle Paton’s home, cut off her finger and steal her wedding ring.
It was alleged that the 44-year-old, who was facing a charge of conspiracy, offered to pay the group £20,000 to carry out the scheme.
But after a key witness told the court he couldn’t remember what he said to police in his statement, the Crown chose to drop the conspiracy charge.
However, Donald pled guilty to a second charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The admission came after police obtained a recording of Donald and her sister-in-law discussing how they would pressure a witness into retracting their police statement.
‘Remorseful for her actions’
Colin Neilson, Donald’s defence solicitor, told the court his client was “naive” about the impact that pressuring a witness could have on the trial.
“This is a very serious charge and there’s no getting away from that,” he said.
“Miss Donald accepts what she has done and is remorseful for her actions.
“She does now better appreciate the seriousness of the matter and the impact her actions have had.”
During the trial, witness Laura Sherrington, now known as Forbes, described how Donald invited her to her sister-in-law Naomi Donald’s home.
There, they discussed “a job” and Donald drew a plan of Mrs Paton’s four-bedroom house in St Fergus.
Forbes claimed Donald asked her and her former partner Pavel Bogucki to break in, steal a number of watches, assault the woman, chop her finger off and steal her wedding ring.
She said Donald wanted her to cut off Mrs Paton’s finger and Forbes could “keep the rings”.
But Forbes told fiscal depute Darren Harty that she had no intention of carrying out the scheme, adding that she only agreed so that Donald would continue to shell out money to feed her drug addiction.
‘No doubt that threats were made’
Pavel Bogucki also took the witness stand and claimed that Forbes had fabricated Donald’s involvement and admitted lying in his police statement at the time.
Another witness, James Vidgen told Mr Harty he couldn’t remember giving a statement to police because he was a drug addict at the time.
He had originally told detectives he overheard Donald and Forbes discussing the plot.
Following Vidgen’s evidence, the Crown withdrew the charge of conspiracy against Donald and chose to no longer seek a conviction.
However, Donald admitted one charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by pressuring Ms Sherrington to retract her statement prior to the trial.
Sentencing Donald, Sheriff Ian Wallace told her that the charge she admitted was a “serious offence”.
“You asked your sister-in-law to ask the witness to retract her statement,” the sheriff said. “There’s no doubt that there were threats made”.
However, Sheriff Wallace added that he accepted that Donald was a first-time offender and had “shown remorse” for her actions.
As an alternative to a prison sentence, he made Donald subject to a community payback order with supervision for 12 months and ordered her to pay a fine of £1,040.
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