A Moray woman has admitted causing thousands of pounds of damage to cars while taking her pet pug for a walk.
Hazel Innes was caught on camera gouging a scratch into a white BMW X3 in Buckie’s Seaview Road.
She was tracked down by police after the CCTV video was posted online.
The incriminating 23-second clip showed her smiling as she checked for passersby before nonchalantly carrying out the crime.
The video has been viewed nearly 700,000 times since victim Shona Coull uploaded it to a social media site.
Innes looked shamefaced as she appeared in the dock at Elgin Sheriff Court yesterday and admitted damaging Mrs Coull’s car and another two in adjoining James Street.
The 44-year-old, of 9 St Peters Road, Buckie, admitted willfully and “without reasonable excuse” dragging “an unknown object” along the nearside of one car parked at Seaview Road and two others in James Street on Friday, January 22.
Last night, the owners of the vehicles targeted said Innes’s actions had cost them a combined £3,260 in repairs.
Mrs Coull said she hoped the court would order Innes to pay the £960 it cost to fix her car.
She said: “All four panels along the nearside were scratched, and £960 is a lot to pay for something so unnecessary.
“It’s a big hassle, my car was gone for a week while it was being fixed.
“Everybody was just so shocked about how casually she did it.”
Mrs Coull had the CCTV system installed just months earlier, after someone threw a rock at the same vehicle.
She believes that, if not for the footage, Innes may never have been caught.
She added: “We would have all just thought it was teenagers, not a 44-year-old woman.”
Alan Strachan had owned his black Honda CRV for less than a year when Innes damaged it.
He said the scrape ran “from the petrol cap to the front” and cost £1,200 to repair.
Mr Strachan added: “I think this woman needs help, it just seems like 10 seconds of madness where she’s done this.”
Fellow James Street resident Meg Munro had to pay £1,100 to have her Nissan Qashqai repaired after it suffered the same fate.
She said: “It was a real shock, and it wasn’t until a few days later that I realised it had happened to some other cars too.”
In the damning video, Innes can be seen slowly approaching the BMW with her right arm extended.
The film shows her taking a surreptitious glance along the street before scraping what looks like a key along the length of the £15,000 4×4.
A pug dog clad in luminous clothing is trailing behind her, and Innes is believed to have paused to light a cigarette before doing the same thing to the other cars.
Her agent, solicitor, Matthew O’Neill, asked for background reports to be prepared and Sheriff Chris Dickson deferred sentenced until May 19.
