Attacker’s sea trip ‘punishment’
A VIOLENT thug once offered a sailing trip as ‘punishment’ for his crimes was jailed for nine months earlier this month after a sheriff noted he had racked up seven assault convictions in less than five years.
But Dale Burns could have avoided prison under the SNP’s latest proposal to empty Scotland’s cells.
The 21-year-old from Auchterarder, Perthshire, attacked two men as he carried on his life of violence, despite having been given the chance to go on a sea adventure trip backed by social workers.
Burns, who in 2010 carried out a brutal Buckfast-fuelled attack on a schoolboy, had also ignored court sentences and community orders.
He was convicted of assaulting and injuring Ross Taylor and Connor Robson in Perth on May 3.
Sheriff Gillian Wade told him: ‘You now have seven convictions for assault. The reports on you don’t make very good reading.’