Farmer cleared over vandal
A FARMER who detained a teenager after suffering vandalism on his property has been cleared of assault.
David Rennie carried out a citizen’s arrest on the 15-year-old and called police after youths broke into a disused building.
He handed the boy to officers when they arrived but he was charged when the youngsters claimed he punched the boy after forcing his arm up his back.
The boy, who cannot be identified, said he and three friends were looking for something to do during last year’s Easter holidays. They ripped off sheeting covering a broken window and climbed into disused Crookedholm nursery school near Kilmarnock.
The boy told the town’s sheriff court: ‘One of my friends said “there’s someone in here” but I didn’t believe him.
‘Then I was grabbed by the neck, shoved against a wall and hit twice in the face by a man who put my arm up my back and took me to another room.’
He said Mr Rennie, 66, told him to call his mother and tell her he was being held in the building.
The boy insisted he had been punched but defence solicitor Brian Holliman said: ‘That was a lie to try to get yourself out of trouble.’
Mr Rennie, 66, told the court he had spent three hours boarding up the building earlier that day after intruders broke in, only for it to happen yet again. He said: ‘Previously, the police caught one youth going over the railings but didn’t charge him as he wasn’t on the premises.’
Claire McEvinney, prosecuting, suggested he had lost his temper and attacked the boy, adding: ‘Maybe you saw red.’
But Mr Rennie insisted: ‘The police were on their way and had told me, “Let us deal with all situations”. I’ve had 36 windows broken.’
Sheriff Shirley Foran found the case against Mr Rennie not proven after his trial last week.
The incident happened near where smallholder Frank Gillingham set up a booby trap with a shotgun that seriously injured a young alleged intruder. In 1998, he was jailed for seven years for the offence in Hurlford.