They steal your sandwich, divebomb your bin – and now they are even guilty of hindering justice.
Across the north and north-east of Scotland, seagulls are proving such a nuisance at court buildings that staff are having to take extreme action – and sometimes that means a death sentence.
After our reporters experienced a problematic bird dubbed Lieutenant Pigeon at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, we delved further into the issue of animals building homes in justice centres – and new figures show the scale of the problem.
We asked the The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service for details of occasions when staff have reported pests at 17 court buildings in the Highlands, north-east and surrounding regions.
110 animal gripes since 2019
The statistics revealed that workers have made a total of 110 reports to pest control officers in the last five years
According to the figures, the biggest enemy to justice by far is the seagull.
Officials asked for help dealing with the yellow-beaked menace on 29 occasions in the last five-year period.
On one occasion, on July 30 2020, court officials got so sick of the sound of nesting seagulls on the roof of Aberdeen Sheriff Court, that they asked for help in removing the birds.
Other kinds of unspecified birds posed a problem on 16 occasions, while pigeons were an issue 11 times.
The next category of critter that irked justice-centre staff was mice and rats. They sparked 10 calls for assistance.
All creatures great and small
But the figures show that smaller animals can also provide a challenge.
Flies caused nine staff complaints, millipedes four, wasps three and ants two.
Caterpillars also generated two complaints, while woodworm, woodlice and bluebottles generated one each.
Aberdeen’s two court buildings have experienced 13 animal-related issues in the last five years, including two in 2024.
Around half of the calls were requests for someone to remove a dead animal – usually seagulls or wasps.
The remainder of requests are to clean up animal mess or to repair netting erected to stop birds nesting in courtyards.
Lieutenant Pigeon incident
However, on February 6 2023, court staff called for assistance when a pigeon turned up to Aberdeen High Court reception – despite not even being on trial.
The winged menace was swiftly removed – but another pigeon was then discovered in the main reception of Aberdeen Sheriff Court on July 12 the same year.
It is not known if it was the same pigeon – but we do know the bird, dubbed Lieutenant Pigeon by court staff, had to be put down.
The pest problem is not unique to Granite City.
Banff Sheriff Court has had 10 pest control reports in the last five years, including one this year about nesting pigeons.
Though perhaps that was not as bad as the time in May 2020 when they found mice nesting in the walls.
Campbelltown Sheriff Court had just one call out in the last five years.
That was a complaint about seagulls nesting on the roof in October 2023
Flies – and flying critters
Elgin Sheriff Court had six complaints – including two reports of fly infestations.
Inverness Justice Centre has had nine callouts – including one in July 2024 to remove caterpillars in July.
Between 2020 and 2022, the issue of birds attempting to build nests at Inverness Justice of the Peace Court was so bad that staff asked three times for kites to be installed as a deterrent.
Lochmaddy Sheriff Court has had one report in five years.
That came in April 2021 and was a request to remove rodents.
Oban Sheriff Court has had four call outs – three of which were infestations of millipedes.
‘We need double spikes’
Peterhead Sheriff Court had 13 call outs – 10 which concerned pigeons or seagulls.
There were five occasions where birds became stuck in netting there and one in which a wired bird deterrent fell off.
Tain Sheriff Court had four callouts in the last five years, while Wick Sheriff Court had 10 – including two issues in 2024.
One of those, in February, related to flies in the Crown Office kitchen while the other came in October and was a request to install double spikes to deter roosting birds.
Nine of those complaints related to seagulls or pigeons.
However, there is some good news in the fight against animals disrupting the scales of justice.
Fort William, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Portree and Stornoway sheriff courts haven’t had a single issue in the last five years.
Fewer incidents
And the number of complaints generally is coming down, showing that pest-control officials are coming up with effective ways of keeping animals at bay.
In total, there were 25 reports of pest control concerns at the 17 courts in and around our region in 2022.
That fell to 19 in 2023 and there have been 10 in 2024, albeit up until the end of October.
We asked the court service how much it spends on pest control, but its staff wouldn’t tell us.
In their response to our freedom of information request, a Scottish Court Service spokesman explained why.
Costs kept under wraps
He said: “To provide the price per unit and/or total spend in respect of pest control calls, would allow the cost of a single call out to be calculated.
“In future procurement exercises, this information would allow competitors to be able to draw up future bids with knowledge of the current pricing information, thereby placing those competitors at an unfair advantage.
“It is in the public interest to withhold the information in order to ensure healthy competition in the provision of public services and to obtain best value in public expenditure.”