Friday courts round-up – Heist at Currys and attacks at B&Q

Good evening – here are the stories that caught the attention of our reporters today.

Man scammed his own family

A man has admitted scamming his family and a childhood friend out of nearly £18,000 to feed his “crippling gambling habit”.

Christopher Forbes, 29, appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court facing charges that he had taken advantage of his close relationships to commit fraud between February 2018 and June 2019.

In one instance, Forbes convinced a pal to give him an initial loan that he managed to increase to just over £14,000 through deception.

He also pretended he would lease a piece of machinery from his employer to a family member in exchange for personal payments totalling nearly £4,000.

Refund refusal sparked B&Q attacks

A disgruntled customer who attacked two DIY store workers after he was refused a refund on a garden plant must complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

Christopher Mackenzie appeared for sentencing at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday having previously pled guilty to charges of assault and threatening or abusive behaviour.

The court heard that on June 23 last year Mackenzie went to B&Q in Inverness and attempted to return a plant.

But staff told Mackenzie, 38, the store did not accept returns of live goods, which upset him.

Man denies exposing himself at traffic lights

A 59-year-old man is to face trial after denying a charge of indecently exposing himself at a set of Aberdeen traffic lights.

Robert Jones appeared from custody at Aberdeen Sheriff Court where he denied a charge of intentionally exposing his private parts to a shocked woman on Dyce Drive.

The 59-year-old, who gave his home address as Lancashire, was arrested after a woman reported she had been flashed at a set of traffic lights in the Argyll Road area on Tuesday.

Officers issued an appeal earlier this week, revealing the culprit had been wearing a blue face covering at the time.

Repeat offender found with indecent images

A man who downloaded indecent images of children just one week after being placed on the Sex Offenders Register has been spared jail.

Repeat offender Paul Dodds was ordered he must make any digital device capable of accessing the internet available for inspection when he was placed on the register in February 2020.

But when police checked his search history and storage just one week later they found he had once again been accessing explicit images.

The 37-year-old’s tablet’s history threw up searches for pregnancy porn and rape porn, while images of his phone showed 26 indecent pictures of a partially-unclothed teenage girl, thought to be aged between 13 and 16.

Oil worker’s descent into drugs hell

A former oil worker whose life fell apart after trying heroin for the first time aged 47 has been jailed for allowing his home to be used to stash £56,000 of Class A drugs.

John Pow’s “extremely comfortable” world crumbled a decade ago when his dad died and he turned to drugs to “numb the pain”, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.

The court heard how organised crime gangs took advantage of the 57-year-old grandad’s age and background and used him to deliver and stash large quantities of drugs.

Police received intelligence that Pow was involved in drug dealing and pulled him over in his car on Eday Drive in Aberdeen on June 18.

£34,000 gadget heist

A man has been jailed for his part in a daring £34,000 raid at a north-east electronics superstore.

Ioan Chitic was one of the masked gang who travelled all the way from Birmingham to break into Elgin’s Currys PC World on the morning of September 25 2019.

They used a circular saw to cut through metal security fences and cladding then broke through a brick wall with a crowbar before filling their bags with gadgets and making their getaway south in at least two vehicles.

Inverness Sheriff Court was told the raiders crawled through a 3ft by 4ft hole and spent 10 minutes racing around the store grabbing electronics and putting them in a black sack.

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