Car vandal's pay back bill
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A Dornoch man caused a total of £1534 worth of damage to two cars and kicked in the door of a property in the town, a court heard.
Jamie Hook, Stafford Road, targeted people who had fallen out with his partner, it was claimed.
In the first incident on November 23, the 20-year old vandalised a car parked at the Meadows Nursing Home, Dornoch.
He punctured all its tyres, daubed it with blue paint, scratched the driver’s door and broke the rear window.
On the same evening Hook, who was caught on CCTV, damaged a car parked at Elizabeth Crescent, Dornoch. He wrote an offensive word in blue paint on a rear door.
Roderick Urquhart, prosecuting, told Tain Sheriff Court that the cars belonged to a mother and son.
He said: “One of the victims said that this has been part of a wider ongoing problem. She says it is not the accused but his partner that is using him as a puppet and egging him on to cause damage to her property.”
Four months later - on March 29 - Hook kicked in the door of a house at River Street, Dornoch. Unknown to Hook, the occupant of the house, Stuart Pratt, had died a few days previously.
Mr Urquhart said: “When interviewed by police, Mr Hook said there had been an altercation between his partner and Mr Pratt about a month prior to the day in question. The accused had been drinking and decided to go to Mr Pratt’s house.
“He knocked loudly on the door for some minutes, causing a man working in a nearby garden to go to investigate the source of the noise. The man then saw the accused kicking in two panels at the bottom of the door and removing them.”
At Monday’s court, Hook admitted two charges of recklessly destroying or damaging property belonging to another as well as another charge of malicious damage.
Defence agent Rory Gowans said his client made “poor decisions when intoxicated” and was easily influenced by others. Social workers deemed him as “likeable”.
Sheriff Chris Dickson imposed an order requiring Hook to be under supervision for 18 months; undertake 90 hours unpaid work and attend an offender awareness programme as well as compensate the car owners.
