Dropped jeans man jailed for assault

Weekend drinker's odd behaviour described as "outrageous" thuggery" by sheriff at Wick
A MAN who turned up with his jeans down about his ankles at the home of an off-duty policeman and assaulted, him has been jailed.
Steven Murray was sentenced to 135 days at Wick Sheriff Court, today having previously admitting the assault.
The court was told that there was no clear explanation for the strange episode in which the 28-year-old was discovered in the porch of Constable David Souter’s home, in Thurso late on the night of October 19, last year.
David Barclay, prosecuting said that the joiner, who was under the influence of drink at the time, was not known to the officer and there was no “sinister” connection with the fact that the incident happened at the home of a police officer.
The senior fiscal depute added: “No-one is quite sure why the accused went to that particular house.”
As Murray, of Dunvarich, Main Street Golspie, was being escorted out of the house, he lashed out at PC Souter, punched him, scratched him on the left forearm and struck on his face.
When fellow officers arrived on the scene to arrest Murray, he told them: “I have been a tit” but later maintained he had no memory of the incident, later.
Solicitor Neil Wilson said that Murray had been “extremely drunk”. The accused, a joiner, had once stayed in the neighbourhood while working in Thurso, previously and may have been trying to find the house where he had stayed.
Murray was described as a hard worker during the week who drank “more than was good for him” at weekends and “gets himself into difficulty.”
Sheriff Andrew Berry, noted a background report which described the incident as “an immature prank” but said: “This was a piece of outrageous thuggery . You entered the home of someone going about their domestic life, without any justification whatsoever.”
The sheriff who highlighted the extent of Murray’s record which involved appearances at six Scottish courts for a variety of offence, added that prison was the only appropriate sentence he could pass.