Teenage girl punched police officer
A TEENAGE girl who resisted arrest by punching a police officer had sentence deferred at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Monday.
Dawn Nicole Smith, 16, of Ladies Drive, Lerwick, appeared from custody and admitted to punching the officer while being arrested after police responded to complaints from neighbours that she was playing loud music on a stereo on Saturday.
Procurator fiscal Duncan MacKenzie said that when the police arrived to seize the stereo, Smith threw a round, heavy object at the officers and it narrowly missed, hitting the stereo which they were carrying at the time.
The situation rapidly deteriorated and when the officers tried to arrest her. The court heard that she lashed out and struck the male officer on the head. Mr MacKenzie said Smith “seemed to find the whole thing amusing”.
In a separate incident on 2nd July, the court heard, Smith stole a car for a “joke” and admitted driving a car without the consent of the owner, without insurance or an appropriate driving licence. The car belonged to an “associate” with whom she had had an altercation before deciding to move the car and hide it, shifting it a short distance.
Smith told Sheriff Graeme Napier that the chances of her appearing before him again were “none”. Sheriff Napier said Smith, who turns 17 in November, “does not strike me as being sufficiently mature to get behind the wheel of a car” and disqualified her from applying to obtain a licence for six months.
On two charges of assaulting the police officers sentence was deferred for six months for Smith, who has no prior convictions, to be of good behaviour, but she was warned that if she misbehaved in that time she could be jailed for up to 12 months. She will appear before the court for sentencing on 14th January.
