Mother who forced vandal who had broken her windows into car to confront parents is fined £600

A furious mother has accused the courts of defending teenage vandals after she got a criminal record for driving a 13-year-old vandal home to his parents. Lynne Donnelly was fined £600 for breach of the peace yesterday after she admitted forcing the boy into her car. But she said after the case: "It is ridiculous that I'm in court at all. The whole justice system is a joke. They smashed my window but nothing happens to them."

Mum-of-two Lynne, 39, fell foul of the law after she caught the 13-year-old and another youth smashing the toughened glass window in the common close outside her home in Perth. Her boyfriend Maxwell Brown collared the teenager and Lynne made him clean up the broken glass. The boy wouldn't reveal his name but Lynne found it out from his friend's mother and took him home. The court heard she made "derogatory remarks" to the vandal while he was in her car.



Lynne then told his parents what their son had done, but she wasn't impressed with their response and ended up shouting at them. Then, after she went home, police arrived to arrest her. They said the boy's parents had made a complaint. Lynne said yesterday: "I was totally shocked when the police turned up. Even they said they were surprised and couldn't believe it." She pled guilty at Perth Sheriff Court to breaching the peace by forcing the boy to accompany her in a car and shouting and swearing.

Perth sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted that Lynne's home had been repeatedly targeted by vandals. Lynne's solicitor, John McLaughlin, said she hadn't wanted to call police on the boy because of his age. He added: "She thought it better to take him to his home address in the hope that his parents would tell him off, as he had shown little remorse or apology." Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker said last night: "Sadly, it's not the first time someone has been dealt with by the courts while the person responsible for the real crime gets away with it."