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.
Emma, who says she was forced to move out of the area after the incident, told how a firearms unit was scrambled. She said: “It was horrific. I genuinely thought the children were going to die. It didn’t make any sense – it was crazy behaviour. This man needs to be jailed again but he must also get medical help. People like him end up slipping through the net and killing someone.”
Airdrie Sheriff Court heard the paintball incident happened in October 2020 when Ritchie ran out of his house and kicked Emma’s 14-year-old Staffordshire terrier Maya for no apparent reason as they walked past. Emma and the youngsters, one aged eight and three 15-year-olds, took the dog away but Ritchie grabbed the paintball gun and started firing shots towards them.
Maya suffered trauma from the attack and had to be put down. Ritchie’s defence solicitor, Alanah Campbell, said his behaviour was down to his “poor” mental health at the time.
She said he had felt “threatened” by the dog. Ms Campbell added: “His actions were impulsive. He accepts this is absolutely no way to act.”
Sheriff Hughes told Ritchie, who had admitted kicking the dog and assaulting two police officers after his arrest: “I was not impressed by your behaviour but I must remember that at the time you had only one previous conviction and that was for a road traffic matter.”
Ritchie was fined £840, put under supervision for three years and ordered to do 270 hours of unpaid community work. The sheriff also imposed a 10-month electronic tagging order.
Scottish Conservative shadow community safety minister Russell Findlay had slammed the lengthy delay in sentencing. He said: “Chronic delays in the broken SNP justice system are all too common and re-traumatise victims while letting criminals escape timely punishment.”
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