Ex-cop fined for threatening behaviour

A FORMER police officer has been fined £600 for behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards a local primary school head teacher.

Thomas Kirsop, 77, of North Ballachulish, was found guilty last month after a trial at Fort William Sheriff Court heard how he had stood in a road near his home, just along from the local school, and had adopted an intimidating and confrontational stance, staring directly at the woman when she arrived at the school on August 16 this year.

Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald had deferred sentence on Kirsop until last Thursday for preparation of a criminal justice social work report.

Fining Kirsop, Sheriff MacDonald said: ‘This would have been extremely unpleasant and it was criminal. And I am aware of the context of all this. However, I am persuaded that I can deal with this by way of a financial penalty and that will be a fine of £600.’

Earlier the same day, Kirsop had gone on trial after pleading not guilty to a charge that on the morning of November 17 this year, he had behaved in a threatening manner likely to place a reasonable person in a state of fear or alarm when he stared repeatedly at a woman and her young son, walked towards them and made an abusive gesture while standing at the edge of his garden.

The woman had video-recorded Kirsop’s behaviour when she and her son walked past his driveway and garden on the way to the local school shortly before 9am and it was at this point the pensioner, who is currently electronically tagged due to other harrassment convictions, had stuck two fingers up at her.

‘I was very upset and my son was very upset,’ she told the court. About 15 minutes later, Kirsop drove past the woman ‘extremely slowly’ and stared at her while she was talking to two other parents outside the school.

‘I was quite upset and shaken by it she told Fiscal Depute Robert Weir.

Defence agent John MacCall suggested to the woman that it was her action of filming his client that had provoked him.

‘I suggest to you that you will do almost anything to get this man in trouble. Is that not correct?’ he asked.

The woman denied the accusation and said all she wanted to do was to walk her son to school without feeling terrified. ‘I don’t want any trouble with Mr Kirsop,’ she added.

Summing up, Mr McCall argued all,’ his client had no case to answer because, while both sides had agreed to accept the video footage as genuine and that the conduct described had occurred, it was not criminal conduct.

‘Spoken profanity is not a criminal act and giving someone the ‘Vs’ is also not a criminal act,’ said Mr McCall.

After deliberations, Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald rejected Mr McCall's argument there was no case to answer.

Summing up the Crown case, Mr Weir commented: ‘Walking towards someone and giving them the ‘Vs’ can be considered abusive.’

Concluding the defence’s arguments, Mr McCall said what the case amounted to was ‘a 77-year-old man standing in his own garden, with his hands in his cardigan pockets and some behaviour that was perhaps rude, unpleasant and unbecoming, but not criminal’.

Passing sentence, Sheriff found Kirsop not guilty.

‘It is clear you were standing in your garden and that you gave the ‘V’ sign to this lady. Although rude, horrible and unnecessary, I am not satisfied this meets the objective test [necessary to convict someone of threatening or abusive behaviour],’ she told him. MacDonald