Darvel man's baseball bat terror

Jul 18 2008 by Colin Rutherford, Kilmarnock Standard

A DARVEL man burst into a neighbour’s house brandishing a baseball bat in a misguided attempt to seek revenge.

Robert Reid, 26, claimed that his neighbour had broken his nose.

But it was a case of mistaken identity, Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard this week.

Reid was found guilty of committing a breach of the peace at a house in John Morton Crescent, Darvel, as well as having a baseball bat as an offensive weapon.

Householder John McNaughton told the court that he had been asleep at his home when his girlfriend woke him to say that somebody was battering at the front door.

“I went to the window at the top of the stairs, looked out and saw Mr Reid standing there with a baseball bat, accusing me of breaking his nose,” he said.

“He was basically just ranting and raving, telling me to get out the house.”

Mr McNaughton said that he tried to persuade Reid to go away.

He said: “I told him I had been in my bed for the last couple of hours and that he was off his head.”

Mr McNaughton said that he went back to bed, but got up again when his flatmate returned home with another neighbour.

It was while the men were talking in the living room that Reid entered the house accompanied by another two men and a woman. He and the younger man were both armed with baseball bats.

Mr McNaughton described Reid as “very hostile”.

“He was still ranting and raving to much the same effect,” he said.

Reid and the others left when they were told that the police were being called. But, as they did so, Reid was hitting his baseball bat off the floor.

Jacqueline Creavy, 28, said that she and Mr McNaughton had, in fact, been in a local pub with Reid earlier in the evening.

She described his actions that night as “quite intimidating”.

“Robert had it in his head that John had punched him in the face,” she said.

Under cross-examination by Colin McLaughlin, defending, both witnesses denied that they were making the story up because of some ill-feeling towards Reid.

Sheriff CB McClory deferred sentence until August 13 and called for social enquiry, community service and restriction of liberty order reports.

Reid, of John Morton Crescent was acquitted of a charge of smashing a door at the same house after a legal submission by Mr McLaughlin.