Dons comparison at robberies trial

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Mini-skirts, shots on goal and stats that don't give you the full picture

A FORMER Aberdeen F.C. manager’s comparison on shots-on-goal, with mini-skirts, was instanced by a defence lawyer in a long running post office robberies trial in the Far North.
Advocate Alan Macleod was dismissing evidence given, earlier in the week, by a police force statitician who traced the telephone calls alleged to have been from mobile telephones belong to accused John Hind and Matthew Peters.
Mr Macleod reminded the jury at Wick, of evidence given by Northern Constabulary’s Maria Wright who agreed that with statistics, you don’t always get the full picture, and went on to draw on Ebbe Skovdahl famous, 2001, quote.
The former Dons boss was commenting on a claim that player, Arild Stavrum, had more shots on target than Celtic striker, Henrik Larsson.
Mr Skovdahl declared: “Statistics are like mini-skirts...they give you good ideas but hide the most important parts.”
Mr Macleod, himself an Aberdeen supporter, dismissed Ms Wright’s evidence over a three-day period as “meaningless”.
He said it “didn’t prove anything”. There was no evidence linking the two accused to the mobile phones recovered by the police, or who had used the phones.
Ms Wright had conceded she was not a mobile phone communications expert and had not been able to speak to the various masts detailed in her report, or whether the network had altered from the date of the offence to the time she had compiled her report.
Hind (54) from Colne, Lancashire, and 40-year-old Peters, who hails from Bournemouth, originally denied 18 charges involving break-ins in the Highlands and north-east Scotland. But following no-case-to-answer submissions by defence, the accused were found not guilty on 16 of the counts.
This left the pair denying a single charge of having jointly broken into the Glenuig shop and post office, in Lochailort, Inverness-shire, and stealing a safe and its contents.
Peters has also maintained his not guilty plea to the remaining charge of breaking into the Sutherland post office at Embo and stealing £7,037 and stock to the value of £1,926.
Sheriff Andrew Berry is due to complete his charge to the jury, today and they will then retire to consider their verdicts.
These will bring to an end one of the longest-ever trials heard at the court, which originally started with allegations of break-ins from Canisbay near John o’ Groat to Glenuig in the south west and Archiestown, in Morayshire, in 2007, and the theft of totals of £34,497 in cash and £10,508 in stock.
The jury took only a hour to find Hind and Peters guilty of the Glenuig robbery. Peters was also found guilty of the Embo break-in.
Sheriff Andrew Berry continued the case for reports, until September 30, and warned the accused to expect custodial sentences.