Jail for ‘terrifying’ axe robbery pair

COURT: City men held up shop and threatened keeper

A pair of Dundee men subjected a Brechin shopkeeper to a terrifying robbery when they held up his shop with an axe and hammer.

Darren Ross and Barry Jackson made off with cash and nearly £2,000 of stock from Dennis’s General Merchant Store.

They had brandished the weapons at co-owner Callum Mcdonald in the early-morning raid.

One of them told their victim not to press a panic button as they knew where he and his wife lived.

Judge Lord Beckett said: “This was a terrifying, premeditated assault and robbery on a shopkeeper of mature years in the early hours when almost no one was around.”

Both men were sentenced to jail time at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.

A man who repeatedly stabbed another man with a potato peeler was acting in self defence, a jury heard.

Campbell Gray, 31, is charged with attempting to murder Martin Davie on March 27 2020 and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by dumping the knife in a street drain.

The prosecution and defence jointly agreed evidence that Gray was responsible for stabbing Mr Davie three times to the right side of the chest, severing an artery and putting his life in danger.

Gray denies the charges. He lodged a special defence claiming he was in fear for his life and in fear of a threat to a family member at the time of the attack in his home in Blair Street, Kelty.

At the High Court in Livingston, Mr Davie, 39, said he had gone to the accused’s house in response to an incident on a group chat. Asked how annoyed he was he said: “I wouldn’t say overly angry.”

His memory of events was “blurry” after Gray answered the door. “I remember blows, I felt it was the side of the hand. I didn’t realise I was getting stabbed until the fourth time when he tried to stab me in the head.”

He denied going to Gray’s house armed with a knuckleduster or a knife and launching an attack on him. Asked if he went to start a fight he said: “100% no.”

His then girlfriend Claire Munro said he was “quite angry” when he left her house after the group chat incident.

Gray’s wife Sarah, 30, said when she met him at his sister’s later she said he told her Martin Davie had pushed him to the floor with a knuckleduster and was hitting him with it.

She said he said he felt scared for his life and that of a family member so stabbed him.

The trial continues.