Doorstep nuisance who frightened residents on their doorstep is jailed
A drug addict who turned up at strangers’ homes uninvited has been jailed.
William Moran called at a woman’s home in Paisley and then went to her back door when she told him to leave.
The town’s sheriff court heard the 49-year-old nuisance was found inside another Paisley address and claimed to be looking for antifreeze for his car.
Moran appeared before Sheriff Bruce Erroch, QC, on Wednesday.
Kirsten Brierley, prosecuting, told how the female victim was in her Spencer Drive home June 21, last year when she became aware of a man outside the property at around 2.55pm.
The procurator fiscal depute said: “The witness heard her front doorbell ring and this startled her as she was not expecting anyone.”
She looked out and “observed the accused standing outside with an empty plastic bottle and a football”.
The frightened woman signalled at Moran from the window to leave.
She watched him leave and checked her front door was locked, but around ten minutes later she heard her back doorbell, which the court heard made the woman “frightened” as she knew the door was unlocked.
She went to the kitchen to check and saw the accused “standing on the top step”.
Moran asked the woman “Where is your man, is your man home?”, before she told him she “didn’t have a man”.
He, who appeared from custody, then handed her his empty plastic bottle and said “juice”, before the frightened woman hastily filled it with water, handed it back and shut the door.
Paisley Sheriff Court heard the woman later called her son and contacted police.
But Moran was discovered by another householder shortly after in nearby Traquair Avenue, after the man had been cooking in his kitchen.
He had left the back door open to avoid setting off smoke detectors in the property when he saw Moran “standing with one foot in his kitchen and the other foot on the step outside the door” at around 3.10pm.
The man asked the intruder what he was doing, only to be asked: “Do you have any anti-freeze? My car has broken down up the Braes.”
He was ordered to leave the man’s kitchen and police were called in.
Moran, formerly of Glenallan
Way, Paisley, admitted being found in the curtilage of the house in Spencer Drive without lawful authority, so it could reasonably concluded that he intended to commit theft.
He also admitted the same charge at the address in Traquair Avenue, on the same date and also while on bail.
He was on bail from sheriff courts in Glasgow and Paisley at the time.
Moran denied a charge of stealing cigarettes from a house in Glendower Way on the same date. His plea of not guilty was accepted by the Crown.
Gemma Elder, defending, said her client was under the influence of “street Valium” at the time.
She said Moran’s partner “passed away suddenly” and added: “He clearly then had a difficulty and used drugs.”
The agent said Moran had been subject to a Drug Treatment and Testing Order which had started “reasonably well” before he fell off the wagon after the personal tragedy and used substances to “relieve the pain”.
She said her client is in custody on remand in relation to another matter.
Sheriff Erroch ordered him to serve 80 days on both matters to run concurrently, meaning both sentences will be served at the same time.
He also admonished Moran on a charge of being found breaching a bail curfew ordering him to stay home between 7pm and 7am on September 23, 2020, at Paisley Road, near Newmains Road, in Renfrew.
Moran was also admonished on a charge of stealing a bike from Renfrew’s Paisley Road on July 28 2021, while on bail.