Sheriff court trial ends with guilty plea
A man who changed his plea during a Campbeltown Sheriff Court trial has been fined. Five witnesses gave evidence, at the recent trial, before Christopher Corkindale, 32, who appeared from custody, changed his plea. Corkindale pleaded guilty to punching a woman on her head, shouting, swearing, throwing items of furniture and challenging others to fight at an address in Campbeltown, and breaking the windscreen of a cherry picker with a stone on May 29. The first witness, the victim of his assault, said that she was at a house in Campbeltown in the early hours of the morning with several other people when Corkindale arrived. She said Corkindale became agitated when trying to talk over everyone else and asked them to stop speaking, at which point he was asked to leave. He punched the witness in the face, leaving her with a bruise on her left cheek and wobbly teeth for some time afterwards. She told the court: ‘He said sorry straight away so I said that it was OK.’ Police arrived at the house to ask if they had heard any shouting and upon seeing the disarray, asked what happened. The witness said that if police hadn’t arrived, she would not have done anything about the incident. The second witness, also present in the house, described a similar scene of chaos, and said Corkindale was asked to leave after the gathering got ‘a bit rowdy’. The third witness was sleeping in a neighbouring property when she was wakened by dogs barking. While waiting for the kettle to boil, she looked out of the window and saw Corkindale throwing stones at a cherry picker. The next day she saw that the vehicle’s windscreen had been cracked. The fourth witness, an access operator for a telecommunications company and driver of the cherry picker, said he parked the vehicle between 5pm and 6pm on May 28. The last time he saw it that night, at about 9.30pm, the windscreen was intact, but when he went to go to work the following morning, at 6am, he noticed that the windscreen and mirrors had been smashed, and he informed police. The trial ended when Corkindale changed his plea to gulity following an interval for lunch which was accepted by the Crown. A fifth witness gave evidence about a charge of vandalising and stealing from a scrapyard on the same date, for which Corkindale’s not guilty plea was accepted. Procurator fiscal depute Eoin McGinty told the court that Corkindale has a record of previous convictions. Defence solicitor Ruben Murdanaigum said: ‘What he has told me is that he thoroughly regrets it and he didn’t realise the distress he had caused. ‘What he did was plain stupidity.’ Mr Murdanaigum urged Sheriff Patrick Hughes to take into account that Corkindale had been in prison from his arrest on June 1 until his appearance in court. Sheriff Hughes told Corkindale: ‘These are serious offences. Lifting your hand to a woman is the worst and although the victim was very accepting of your apology, it caused a great deal of suffering.’ Fining Corkindale £500 and imposing a £500 compensation order, Sheriff Hughes said: ‘I must stress, this is as an alternative to custody. ‘If any of these payments are not made you will just be taken straight to jail.’