Sofasurferwent intowronghouse

A sofa-surfer who wandered into the wrong house before sitting on a child’s bed and struggling with her mother was jailed for ten months this week.

Homeless Scott Hutchison (41) had been drinking for three days before mistaking the house and even the street in St Ninians where a pal had told him he could sleep.

He walked uninvited into the house where a 13-year-old girl was about to go to sleep and sat on the end of her bed.

Kyrsten Buist, prosecuting, said the youngster, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had never seen Hutchison in her life before.

Miss Buist said:“She was extremely distressed and began to scream out to her mother for help. The accused told her to be quiet.”

The child’s mother heard her cries and went to the bedroom where she found Hutchison still sitting on the end of her daughter’s bed.

Miss Buist said the child was crying and her mother began to grapple with Hutchison to try to get him to leave.

The depute fiscal said:“He was resisting her efforts to push him out of the door and there was a struggle for several minutes.”

Eventually the girl’s mother did manage to get Hutchison to leave, and she called her husband, a taxi driver, who rushed to the scene and identified Hutchison from his wife’s description, hanging around a nearby parade of shops.

He“made contact with him”and took him back on foot to the house where his wife and daughter identified him as the intruder. The police were called and Hutchison was arrested.

The incident began about 9.50pm on April 27 and Stirling Sheriff Court was told on Monday that Hutchison had been in custody ever since. Hutchison pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour. Ian McClelland, defending, said his client had been “sofa surfing”and had been told by a friend that if he needed to, he could stay in a flat nearby.

He said:“He had been drinking for the preceding three days, and due to his intoxicated state he went to the wrong property. He is incredibly apologetic.”

Imposing the ten-month jail term, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told Hutchison that his actions had been “distressing and alarming”for the child and her mother, but he noted that he had co-operated afterwards.

He ordered the sentence to be backdated to April, when Hutchison was first held in custody.