A businessman who shot at a terrified woman and four children with a paintball gun has escaped a jail sentence. Emma Davis thought the weapon was real when Paul Ritchie, 37, fired at her and the children from his garden in Dolphinton, Lanarkshire, after kicking her dog.
The following year he served a one-year prison sentence for sending death-threat emails to MPs, including former House of Commons speaker John Bercow, ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP’s Ian Blackford. The same year Ritchie was placed under social work supervision for targeting author JK Rowling and other individuals with threatening messages.
Sentencing over the paintball attack in 2020 was delayed repeatedly for background and psychiatric reports after
he admitted the offence in May last year. But Ritchie, who ran a property booking website, walked free from court last week when Sheriff Joseph Hughes handed him a community payback order because, at the time of the incident, he had only a road traffic offence on his record.
