This comes from the Scots Law News blog, to which one of this blogs friends, Scott Wortley, contributes. It looks at the law in an oblique and lighthearted way. The following story perhaps illustrates the point:
As the great Matt McGinn song testifies you can’t fling a jeely piece from a twenty storey flat, however, we know that the Scottish criminal courts have previously considered the throwing of a hamster from a top flat window and in Feburary this year Edinburgh sheriff court considered the throwing of a microwave oven from a tenth floor flat.
Lea Farquharson threw the microwave oven from the tenth floor flat as her partner, Allan Addison, returned to the building following an earlier argument. This was done in a bid to “scare him”. The oven smashed metres away from Mr Addison who was unhurt.
Ms Farquharson pleaded guilty to culpably and recklessly throwing a microwave oven to the danger of the public on 27 June 2009. Having explained that the action was taken in a “moment of madness” influenced by excessive consumption of alcohol, Ms Farquharson was sentenced to six months imprisonment by Sheriff Scott. He said,
“I am satisfied no sentence other than a custodial sentence is appropriate given the gravity of the offence and the potential danger to the public.
“Somebody could have come out of the basement of the block of flats and it could have been disastrous.”
As cases involving the throwing of unusual items from upper flat windows seem to recur on a cyclical basis we await the next prosecution in early 2012.
Filed under: The Law Tagged: | Scots Law News
Sorry, Robert, but the Jeelie Piece Song was written by Adam McNaughton
Check out his Oor Hamlet — the entire plot of the play in a few verses — pure genius! http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/Oor_Hamlet.shtml
Will do Ian. Just as well you weren’t here the other day we were talking about an old teacher called Wee Bertie!!
Thanks very much for the Burns discs!
A colleague pointed out the origin of the song. The blog will be corrected post-haste.
Many thanks
scott
Thanx for the heads-up on McNaughton, Ian … lmao
Rab,
Indeed, this is a most amusing series of cases. I would counsel you to look in the direction of Professor MacQueen and Mr Wortley’s third installation in the series regarding a plugged-in vacuum cleaner: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/sln/blogentry.aspx?blogentryref=8281.
May I also take this moment to compliment you on the Scottishness of your site!
All the best!
Gav