TWO men were each sentenced to five years yesterday for separate attacks carried out while they were on bail.
In the first, Craig Miller punched a disabled man in the face, and threatened him with a knife during a night-time gang raid at the victim's home before taking just GBP17. Miller, who turned 20 yesterday, was heavily under the influence of drink and drugs, the High Court in Edinburgh heard.
Lord Wheatley told Miller that if he had not pled guilty he would have faced an eight-year sentence. He had earlier admitted that while acting with others he assaulted the victim at his home in Dunfermline, in Fife, on December 7 last year and robbed him.
Miller, of Leadside Crescent, Dunfermline, forced entry to the victim's house, repeatedly punched him, presented a knife at him, threatened him with violence and demanded money and details of his PIN number.
Miller committed the offence after being freed on bail by a sheriff in the town on February 24 last year on charges of assault to severe injury and robbery, for which he was sentenced to 18 months detention in January this year.
In the second case, the High Court in Glasgowwas told how an armed mugger on bail attacked a pensioner after she took money from a cash machine. Alexander Robertson was also under a probation order and a drug treatment and testing order, the court heard.
At an earlier court appearance Robertson, 24, admitted assaulting and robbing a woman at Tryst Road, Stenhousemuir, in Stirlingshire, on January 25 this year.
He brandished a metal bar at his victim, grabbed her handbag, repeatedly pushed and pulled her and dragged her after she fell to the ground.
Unemployed Robertson, of Newtown, Bo'ness, in West Lothian, also admitted committing the offence while on bail granted at Falkirk Sheriff Court in October.
Earlier this week two teenage killers were remanded in custody after setting fire to the body of their victim after a brutal attack on a Glasgow footpath.
David Thomson and Sean Kergan, both 18, were on bail when they battered and stamped on Stephen Daly, and slashed him repeatedly with a razor. They admitted murder yesterday and were remanded in custody.
Earlier in the week a serial fire-raiser who laughed as he watched a woman fight to put out a blaze he had started at her home was sent to a high security psychiatric hospital.
Brian Carmichael, 19, of Cumnock, Ayrshire, earlier admitted a string of fire-raising charges - including blazes at the homes of his father and grandfather, while on bail.
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