A man knocked a hole through his upstairs neighbour’s floor and stuck his head through it to moan about the noise.
Leslie Robertson broke through his ceiling using a broom and then forced his head and hands through the gap to hurl abuse at his horrified neighbour.
The 43-year-old caused over £2,000 of damage to his council flat during the violent outburst on the evening of November 18 last year.
He’d previously made a series of complaints about noise during the eight years that he had lived below the woman, Elgin Sheriff Court was told.
And the pair’s bickering came to a head when Robertson’s furious face appeared through the floor of the woman’s home on Morriston Road, Elgin.
‘She saw the accused’s head appear through the floorboards and heard him shout’
Procurator fiscal Sharon Ralph said: “The woman was at home on her sofa in the living room. She heard banging coming from below.
“She thought nothing of it and fell asleep. She was woken by louder banging which seemed to be coming from her bedroom.
“She saw the accused’s head appear through the floorboards and heard him shout ‘you old b******’.
“She told him she would call the police and he replied, ‘On you go or I’ll do it myself ‘.”
Robertson later told police: “She has been a pain in the neck. I haven’t been able to sleep at night”.
His antics are estimated to have inflicted £2,292 worth of damage, although Robertson disputed the figure in court.
But Robertson pled guilty to charges of threatening or abusive behaviour and wilfully damaging property.
His defence agent Stephen Carty said that his client didn’t mean to cause any damage to the Moray Council-owned property.
Angry at ‘excessively loud music’
“Over time, Mr Robertson has made a number of complaints about noise coming from the property,” Mr Carty told the court at the case’s first hearing.
“He had called the police on a number of occasions with regard to the levels of noise. There was excessively loud music coming from upstairs.
“He picked up a broom and started hitting the ceiling. Ultimately he hits it hard enough that the floor breaks.
The solicitor revealed that Robertson is trying to move away from his neighbour.
Mr Carty explained: “He has made applications to move himself from the flat he has lived in for a number of years. These are before the local authority.
“Hopefully, that will benefit both Mr Robertson and the complainer.”
Robertson grappling with ‘long-standing addiction’
The solicitor added that his client has a “significant record” and a “background of illicit substance misuse and long-standing addiction, which he is making efforts to address”.
Sentencing of Robertson suffered a four-month-long delay while obtaining flat repair costs from Moray Council.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis heard that Robertson had only engaged “sporadically” with drug and alcohol addiction services.
He considered a community payback order would be unhelpful and sentenced Robertson, of Morriston Road in Elgin, to 10 months in prison.
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