Thursday court round-up — Takeaway till heist and a trail of blood

Tills containing £200 were stolen from a Dundee chip shop by crooks who stole the owners car.

Keys to Tony’s takeaway on Linfield Place were discovered inside Zubair Saleem’s vehicle when it was taken by Kelly Horn and Peter Winks.

Sentence has been deferred on the pair after they pled guilty to breaking into the shop on December 11-12 last year.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard how Horn, 35, and Winks, 43, found keys to the takeaway inside the car after the latter obtained his the car keys.

Prosecutor Sarah Wilkinson said: “The accused ransacked the place and stole two cash registers and a CCTV unit.

“There was £200 within the tills.”

Winks had also stolen another vehicle which he had crashed into a fence. The engine was still running and the keys were in the ignition.

Winks, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pled guilty to stealing cars on Janefield Place and Woodlands Terrace.

Both he and Horn, of Fairbairn Street, admitted breaking into the takeaway and stealing.

Solicitor Ross Bennett, representing repeat offender Winks, said: “Although he tried to get away from old cronies, he inevitably would meet them and got involved in crack cocaine.

“It was through that involvement that these crimes occurred.”

Sheriff Alastair Carmichael deferred sentence on the pair until November for a social work report to be obtained.

Murder trial latest

Perth stab victim Cameron Rae died after being knifed through the diaphragm and lung, a high court murder trial has heard. The jury heard from pathologist Dr Tamara McNamee, who examined the tragic 20-year-old’s body after his death in the city’s South Methven Street in April 2023. Caleb Ferguson, 20, denies murder.

Panicked on drink-drive

An Angus motorist has been disqualified from driving for a year and fined £355 after clipping another car while driving from Arbroath to Forfar while drunk.

Jamie Collins appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit driving with excess alcohol (70 mics/ 22) and failing to stop and exchange details following a collision.

The first offender hit a parked car on Millgate in Arbroath at 11.30pm on September 7 this year.

Its owner heard a loud bang and watched as Collins, 31, drove away without stopping.

Police traced him at his home in Service Road, Forfar.

Solicitor Michael Boyd said: “He had been out in Arbroath. His intention was to stay at a friend’s house.

“He stupidly decided to drive home to Forfar. He panicked, he accepts that he did the wrong thing.”

Controlling abuser

A controlling abuser has admitted spitting on his partner’s face and leaving her bruised and swollen during four years of terror in Dundee. Owen Neave would repeatedly attack the woman at an address in the city between 2019 and 2023 and is now awaiting sentence.

Fight loser

A man who attacked his victim at a Leven bar ended up unconscious and losing three front teeth, a court has heard.

Robert Smart, 52, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to the assault on Corrie Inglis at Molly Malones on January 14 last year.

Smart admitted headbutting Inglis, repeatedly punching him to the head, dragging him to the ground, placing his fingers on his eyes and applying pressure and arming himself with a pool cue and engaging in a fight with him.

He ended up worse off, after hitting Inglis’ girlfriend with the cue, when he was booted in the face as he knelt on the ground.

Prosecutor Isma Mukhtar told the court Smart became embroiled in an argument with Inglis and headbutted him to the face, punched him and dragged him to the ground.

The fiscal said: “He placed his hand on the complainer’s face and it appeared as though he was going to attempt to gouge his eyes.

“He then punched him to the head again and at that point he fell to the ground.

“During the incident the accused sustained injuries as well.

“He was noted to have three missing teeth to the front of his mouth, bruising to his nose”.

Ms Mukhtar said Inglis was hurt but did not have physical injuries.

Offshore worker Smart’s defence lawyer said her client suffered a head injury himself and was in a serious condition, unconscious and taken to hospital.

The solicitor said Smart, of Victoria Road, Buckhaven, had little recollection of events but is remorseful.

Sheriff Mark Thorley sentenced him to 160 hours of unpaid work.

Earlier this year Inglis was given 135 hours of unpaid work after he admitted a life-endangering assault as part of the fight.

He was told he may not even have appeared in court if, having bested Smart, he had not returned to deliver one last kick to the head.

High-speed chase

Dangerous driver Katie Reid, who abandoned her car in a field following a high speed police chase through Dundee and Perthshire, has been jailed. The 33-year-old almost crashed into another car as she weaved in and out of traffic at speeds of up to 90mph and at one point, pretended to surrender to police only to put her foot down when officers pulled up behind her.

Trail of blood

Police were confronted with a “trail of blood” when they investigated reports of a vicious bottle attack at a Perth city centre flat.

Victim Nyasha Kuri was found with a two-and-a-half inch open wound on his forehead.

His then-partner Eilidh Dow confessed to officers she had hit him during a row.

Dow, 25, originally appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on petition, accused of assaulting Mr Kuri to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement.

She returned to the dock and admitted an amended charge of assault to injury at a flat in North Methven Street in the early hours of July 10 last year.

Fiscal depute Stuart Hamilton said Dow, Mr Kuri and a friend returned to the flat at about 4am, having spent the night drinking.

“The complainer was very intoxicated and an argument ensued.

“This escalated and the accused struck him with a glass bottle on the head.”

Police were called to the flat, the prosecutor said.

“Officers observed a trail of blood on the floor of the landing leading to the locus,” he said.

Dow admitted her actions to police but Mr Kuri told them he had been assaulted by a male, not his partner.

He was taken to hospital with an open, 6cm head wound, closed with Steri Strips.

Dow, of Stanley Road, Milnathort, was fined £300.

999 fine

A nursery school worker whose hoax 999 call sparked a major search of a Loch Tay has been spared jail after a sheriff said she could not be sent to prison for long enough. Clair Frost, 35, sounded the false alarm from Killin Nursery School in Perthshire but the maximum sentence available was three months so she was fined £1,040 instead.

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