News / Teenager avoids jail
A TEENAGER from Lerwick who assaulted a fellow reveller at a high school after-party before punching a girl and spitting on another just two weeks later has narrowly avoided a prison sentence.
Thomas Drever, of the town’s Cheyne Crescent, has to instead observe a curfew that requires him to stay indoors between 8.30pm-6.30am for the next eight months.
At Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday he pled guilty to threatening a man with violence and repeatedly punching him on the head to his injury at the Ness Boating Club, in Virkie, on 19 December.
He also admitted punching a girl, then aged 15, on her body at Lerwick’s Mounthooly Street on 1 January and spitting on another girl’s face at the same location.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said the 18 year old got into a fight at an after-party for Anderson High School’s annual Beanfeast bash.
It stemmed from “some stupid argument about music that been playing at the time,” he said. The victim received a slight cut underneath the eye, as well as bruising.
Drever was at the yearly Hogmanay gathering at Lerwick’s Market Cross when the second batch of incidents took place.
“He fancies himself as a bit of a hard man” when drunk, Mackenzie said, and began threatening people.
Two females who knew Drever attempted to calm him down, but instead he punched one of the girls on the body and spat on the other.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said the “penny has begun to drop” for his client, who now “realises his actions are getting him nowhere”.
Painting a more positive picture, Allan added that since the offences Drever has regained employment and is now in a relationship with a woman who “wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behaviour”.
Sheriff Philip Mann said the 18 year old was “fast approaching” the point where a custodial sentence was the only option.
In addition to imposing a curfew he placed Drever under supervision for one year and ordered him carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.
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