Man’s £12k rampage at neighbours
CCTV shows drunken neighbour smashing up home in rampage
THIS is the shocking moment a 53- year- old man staggered up to his neighbours’ house and smashed every single window on the ground floor – in broad daylight.
James Roy came home drunk from the pub and proceeded to shatter 27 of the spacious rural home’s windows in a fit of rage, causing almost £12,000 of damage.
CCTV footage shows him smashing the property while his victims, James and Sylvia Sutherland, cowered inside.
It’s the latest chapter in a 20- year feud that has seen Roy’s father also fined and slapped with an anti- social behaviour order (Asbo) for filling barrels with human excrement and dumping them at the side of the road.
Roy told The Sunday Post he regretted his actions – but “saw red” when he came home to find his elderly mother had been evicted.
The Roy family live in static caravans beside a ruined house in Madder ty, Perthshire, and have previously been threat- ened with eviction. Just hours before Roy’s rampage, bailiffs had arrived and removed a trailer – forcing his elderly parents to move.
“When I came home my mum was sitting outside on a wheelchair,” said Roy. “She was greeting her eyes out. She’s 87. I just saw red when I saw my mum sitting there.”
Blaming neighbours for sparking the eviction and under the influence of alcohol, Roy staggered down the road to the Sutherlands’ far mhouse and picked up a large rock, before lobbing it at a window. He then circled the house and smashed every window he c am e across – com - p lete ly shattering 20 of the doubleglazed fittings and damaging a further seven.
Meanwhile, the terrified Sutherlands retreated upstairs and watched the attack on their CCTV system – after quickly calling the police.
Their home was boarded up for five weeks following the incident, which left shards of glass scattered across their driveway and garden.
At Perth Sheriff Court last week, Roy was sentenced to 200 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £1335 to cover the cost of the couple’s increased insurance premiums.
Sheriff William Wood said he considered sending van driver Roy to jail “because of the scale of the damage”.
He said: “It must have been a terrifying experience for Mr and Mrs Sutherland.”
Defence solicitor Pauline Cullerton said her client was “extremely embarrassed and ashamed”.
She added: “He had returned home after being at a pub and found his mother, who does not keep good health, sitting outside her caravan with all her possessions. He lost the plot.”
Peter, Roy’s elderly father, has repeatedly been hauled before the courts for storing containers of his family’s excrement by the roadside.
As well as collecting up to 80 oil drums of human and animal waste, the former pig farmer left wheelie bins, cement mixers and even a bath full of human excrement on the village’s main road.
He was slapped with an Asbo in 2007 when a court heard residents had been left feeling sick due to the stench.
The Roys had moved to the site at Craigmuir Farm after being evicted from their council home in the village.