TAKING a legal high which didn’t “agree” with him ended in a costly court appearance for a Dunfermline teenager this week.

Pizza shop worker Kaine Baxter, 19, threw a wardrobe door out of his window after an evening when he had been drinking with friends and taken the drug.

He appeared for sentencing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court on Wednesday after earlier admitting that on April 13 this year, at the James Bank Hostel, he behaved in a threatening or abusive manner which was likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by shouting, swearing, throwing the wardrobe door out of the window and threatening to damage property.

He also wilfully or recklessly destroyed or damaged property belonging to another and punched a mirror. The offences took place when Baxter was on bail.

Depute fiscal Dav Kapadia said security guards and a support worker at the hostel heard banging from Baxter’s room and one witness heard what she thought to be the sound of sawing.

They went in his room and, after hearing shouting and swearing, saw the bedroom window was open. Baxter threw one of his wardrobe doors out of the window and said he had smashed the mirror.

He continued to rant and said he was going to damage more property.
Solicitor Jonathan Mathieson-Dear described it as an “extremely foolish and potentially dangerous” offence.

“He has expressed remorse for his conduct,” he told the court. “He has very little explanation other than the fact that he was consuming alcohol with some friends in the accommodation on this day. 

“He was passed a legal high by a friend and he consumed it. It didn’t agree with him and caused him to behave in this erratic way.”

Mr Mathieson-Dear said the incident appeared to be out of character for Baxter, who had since got a job and been allowed back to stay at the hostel.

Sheriff Alison McKay said she was prepared to draw a line under the matter.

“At the time of the offence, not only was your behaviour totally unacceptable and dangerous, you were on bail and a community payback order,” she told Baxter. “You should have known better and you do know better.”

She placed him on a community payback order with supervision for 18 months and ordered him to pay £200 compensation.