Man in court over smoke bomb

A driver and his three passengers had to scramble from their car after a Perth man threw a smoke bomb through their open window as it stopped at traffic lights in the city centre.

The missile hit David Cargill then bounced into the back of his vehicle, immediately filling it with thick, red smoke and obscuring his vision.

“He pulled the car over and he and his passengers quickly got out,”depute fiscal Claire Kennedy told Perth Sheriff Court yesterday.

The smoke bomb was then thrown onto the pavement, where it caught fire.

“One of the passengers stamped it out,”explained the fiscal.

Sheriff William Wood described it as“another crazy incident”when 22-year-old Callum Torbet, of Newhouse Place, Letham, appeared in the dock.

He admitted culpably and recklessly igniting the smoke bomb at Atholl Street, Perth, on May 6.

He then threw it from a taxi into the open window of a car driven by Mr Cargill.

It struck him on the body then landed inside the vehicle.

It filled the car with smoke, placing the driver and passengers Christy McIntosh, Lauren Gray and Cody Wotherspoon in danger of injury.

The court heard that the accused was in a taxi which had stopped opposite Mr Cargill’s car at the traffic lights in Atholl Street.

Mr Cargill had his window open as he was smoking. Torbet was in the front passenger seat of the taxi.

Without warning, the accused threw the smoke bomb out of his window and into the car parked alongside.

Solicitor Paul Ralph said the smoke bomb had ended up in the footwell of the taxi and Torbet had picked it up.

He started to unscrew it, thinking it would have a fuse - but it didn’t.

“It went off and he threw it out the window. Unfortunately it landed in the other car.”

Fortunately there were no injuries caused to anyone.

Sheriff Wood deferred sentence until January 3 and asked the prosecution to find out the cost of damage, if any, to the other car.

He also called for a background report on Torbet after commenting:“It’s a strange set of circumstances.”