Shieldhill thug bombarded home with bricks while woman and children were inside

Gordon Graham attacked the woman’s home three times in two hours, showering the interior with glass shards as she cowered inside with her nine-week-old baby and eight-year-old daughter.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she thought she had been bombed.

The initial attack began about 2.45pm, when Graham turned up drunk at the woman’s home in Shieldhill and asked where her partner was. She asked him to leave and went upstairs.

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Prosecutor Cheryl Clark said: “She then heard a loud smash, like a bomb going off.

“She came downstairs and saw there was a paving slab on the kitchen floor which had been thrown through the kitchen window.”

Graham then appeared at the front of the house, shouting and swearing, before being picked up in a car and driven off.

Miss Clark said: “Police were called and took statements and observed a piece of paving slab on the kitchen floor.

“Glass shards were scattered across the kitchen worktops and floor and there was a large hole in the kitchen window.”

Police left, but two hours later the woman was standing in her living room with her baby when her eight-year-old daughter ran downstairs screaming to say Graham was approaching the house with bricks in his hand.

Miss Clark said: “The mother saw the accused in the garden directly outside the living room window. He saw the mother, who was holding her baby, and threw several bricks at the two living room windows, smashing them and scattering glass shards across the room, including the area where she was standing.”

She grabbed her elder daughter and ran with her baby into the hall, just as another brick came through a side window at the foot of the stairs.

The depute fiscal said: “The police were phoned again, and the accused left for a short time but returned and began hammering with a brick on the middle panel of the front door.”

Neighbours began to gather and saw Graham throwing more bricks through the windows. Bystanders tried to usher Graham away, but he continued to shout and swear until police arrived again and arrested him.

Miss Clark said: “The police observed smashed and shattered glass throughout the property. Shards of glass were strewn down the stairs, along the hallway, and covered the majority of the floor of the living room.

“A brick had come to rest in a baby chair lying on the living room floor.

“The chair was also covered in large shards of glass.

“Police recovered a total of eight building bricks from within and outwith the house.”

At Stirling Sheriff Court, Graham, an unemployed roofer, of Shieldhill, pleaded guilty to culpable and reckless conduct, using threatening and abusive behaviour, and police assault.

The court heard he had spat at a police officer after his arrest, while he was in the A and E department of Forth Valley Royal Hospital where he had been taken for treatment to a cut on his head.

The mayhem occurred on November 19, 2018.

Solicitor-advocate Martin Morrow, defending, said there had been “bad blood” between Graham’s brother, who had recently died, and a man who lived at the address.

He said his client had been “upset”.

Imposing a 41-month jail term, Sheriff Simon Collins said: “This was an appalling crime — a repeated and sustained attack on the complainer’s house at a time when the accused knew, or ought to have known, that young children, one of them a nine-week-old baby, were inside.

“Notwithstanding that he threw a paving slab through the kitchen window and later threw building bricks through the living room windows showering the interior of the house with flying glass and then appears to have tried to smash his way through the front door.

“He appears to have acted with complete indifference to the safety of the occupiers.

“He did this while intoxicated, repeatedly shouting, swearing and uttering threats of violence.

“It was a only a matter of sheer good fortune that nobody was seriously injured. The whole incident must have been terrifying for those inside.

“Leaving the house after the first incident, and returning to the house armed with bricks, shows a significant degree of premeditation in relation to the latter part of the incident.”