The madness of soft touch justice (cont.)
Career criminal preyed on a vulnerable housebound woman he was ordered to help as part of his community sentence
A SERIAL thug terrorised a vulnerable woman after being sent to do her gardening work as part of his community service.
Career criminal Robert McPhee targeted housebound Sheena Duncan – then went on to launch a brutal assault on another woman.
The 28-year-old had racked up a string of convictions for theft, assault, robbery, breaching court orders, racially aggravated conduct, possession of offensive weapons, fraud and threatening and abusive behaviour.
Despite that record, McPhee was earlier this year given a Community Payback Order (CPO) for theft.
The case last night raised fresh questions over the SNP’s controversial CPO scheme, after the Daily Mail revealed in September that child rapists were among those receiving the orders.
A sheriff yesterday voiced ‘concern’ over McPhee’s CPO, while Scottish Tory community safety spokesman Oliver Mundell said ‘serious questions have to be asked as to how this individual was allowed back into society’.
Miss Duncan, 59, told the Mail she had become more reclusive as a result of the incident.
She said: ‘I’m relieved he has been jailed but I know he will be out again. I know he’s a career criminal. He knows my house now. I fear being targeted again.
‘The police said if I ever see him again to phone them straight away. This doesn’t help my anxiety, it just keeps me reclusive.
‘I’m not against CPOs in general, but when someone is involved with drugs and things like that I don’t think they work.’
McPhee took advantage of the court’s leniency by stealing from Miss Duncan’s home before carrying out an assault on a 39-year-old woman, during which he was seen ‘pulling her about like a rag doll’.
The thug, who was also on bail on two separate theft charges at the time, was yesterday jailed for two years and three months, with the sheriff voicing ‘concern’ that McPhee had met his victim through the CPO.
Sheriff Pino di Emidio told McPhee it was a ‘concern and a matter that the court treats as a serious aggravation that these offences occurred at the house of a lady you were introduced to while carrying out unpaid work while subject to an order of the court’.
The court had heard how McPhee was sent to do gardening work at Miss Duncan’s home in Arbroath, Angus, as part of his CPO.
The order was imposed on July 12 for two charges of theft – one of shoplifting and one statutory charge under the Civic Government Scotland Act ‘of being in a place where it may be reasonably inferred that he intended to commit theft’. McPhee received a year’s supervision and 120 hours of unpaid work.
But he used the CPO to take advantage of Miss Duncan – who was described in court as ‘housebound’ because of depression and severe anxiety – and arrived at her home repeatedly, before showing up under the influence of an unnamed substance, on August 20 this year.
He knocked on the door and walked straight past the ‘terrified’ woman when she opened it.
McPhee then lay down on the sofa and went to sleep.
A friend of Miss Duncan’s helped to throw him out, but the thug returned a few minutes later, after the friend had gone.
Fiscal depute Jill Drummond told Forfar Sheriff Court: ‘He asked the complainer for the key to her shed, which she gave to him. He said to her, “I came here for your strimmers because you don’t need them”.
‘The complainer says she gave him the keys because she was terrified of him and she thought that might make him leave.
‘He and another male then went to the complainer’s shed and removed a lawnmower and two strimmers without her permission.
‘The accused re-attended at the complainer’s home at about 3.30pm.
‘The complainer felt too frightened to open her door but the accused entered the property through the open door and sat down in the complainer’s living room. She felt too frightened to ask him to leave.’
The fiscal depute added: ‘At one point she saw the accused walk into her bedroom.
‘She told him she was going to call her friend and at hearing this, the accused left the property.
‘Once he had left, she realised that her iPod, which had been charging in her bedroom, had been stolen.’
Miss Drummond said that four days later McPhee launched a vicious assault on a 39-year-old woman.
She said: ‘He took a hold of her in a headlock which caused her to feel breathless.
‘He pushed her to the ground and kicked her to the stomach while she was on the ground.
‘A passer-by intervened and he left the area.
‘An independent witness told the police he was “pulling her about like a rag doll”.
McPhee, described in court as a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to charges of theft, assault to injury and vandalism.
Defence solicitor Nick Whelan McPhee told the court that his client was an ‘opportunist’ rather than a ‘predator’.
Last night, Scottish Labour justice spokesman Claire Baker said: ‘The SNP Government should be explaining how this could happen.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Sentencing is a matter for the courts.’
SCOTS have long had to endure the horrors of the soft-touch justice system foisted on them by the SNP.
Yet every so often a case so egregious as to beggar belief still manages to shock with a new low.
Today we report how a serial thug terrorised a vulnerable woman after being sent to do her gardening work as part of his community service.
Is the system so dysfunctional that Robert McPhee’s extensive list of previous convictions was known – and yet he was still judged suitable for community service? Or is it that the system is so broken that this yob’s past was not considered so grievous as to disbar him from anything other than jail?
Either way, there are difficult questions for Justice Secretary Michael Matheson, the invisible man of Nicola Sturgeon’s Cabinet, to answer over this.