A couple who caused two children to swallow cocaine are facing jail. Alan Rutherford, 47, and Julie Allan, 44, were in charge of the six-year-olds but instead subjected them to neglect and they swallowed the Class A drug inside a property in Motherwell, Lanarkshire.
A further three children were also neglected by the pair. Rutherford and Allan, of Motherwell, appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court and admitted five charges of wilful neglect between January 2023 and November 2024.
The pair admitted failing to lock the door of their property which allowed people who were under the influence of drink and drugs to access the house while the youngsters were present.
Woman convicted of illegal fox hunting
A woman has been convicted of illegal fox hunting in Scotland. Master of the Hounds Claire Bellamy was found guilty of deliberately hunting the wild animal using a pack of dogs.
The 51-year-old has carried out 1,500 hunts in Scotland in her three-decade-long fox hunting career and is the former huntswoman of the Scottish Borders-based Lauderdale Hunt. But she could now be jailed for up to 12 months, or fined up to £40,000, after being convicted of illegally hunting foxes.
She was found guilty on Monday of breaking the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023. Bellamy, who is originally from England, was hunting in Kirkton Wood, between the villages of Houston, Renfrewshire, and Kilmacolm, Inverclyde.
Grandson of crime matriarch jailed for machete attack
A grandson of notorious crime clan matriarch Big Mags Haney has been jailed for a “sadistic” attack with a machete and an imitation firearm on a man he wrongly believed had raped his sister.
Angus Cowan, 29, “carefully planned revenge” on his 23-year-old victim after his sister provided information to him that turned out to be “lies”, a court was told.
He arranged for the victim to pick him up from an address in Tillicoultry and drive to a secluded woodland park on December 4, 2024. When they got there, Cowan pulled out an imitation shotgun and hit him in the face with it, saying “you know you’re f*****”.
Man in hospital after Fife dog attack
A man is in hospital after a dog attack in Fife. Police swarmed Ednam Drive in the Macedonia area of Glenrothes at 11.15am on Monday, October 5.
An eyewitness said the victim was screaming in the street. They said: "I ran out of my house when I heard the man screaming. A few of us helped. He was in a really bad way. I hope he's okay."
A man was rushed to hospital for treatment. There are no further details of his condition.
Life sentence for Ayrshire murder
A man has been locked up for life for the "brutal" murder of a man in his Ayrshire home. Terence Welsh, 42, stabbed Stuart Kennedy, 59, to death in Ardrossan in September 2024.
Welsh denied the murder but was found guilty when he stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow last month. He received a life sentence with a minimum term of 19 years at the High Court in Edinburgh today.
Emergency services were called to reports of a disturbance at a block of flats on Montgomerie Street in the North Ayrshire town on the evening of September 10, 2024. Stuart was found fatally wounded within one of the flats and was pronounced dead at the scene.
