by Craig Borland

A DALMUIR man who allegedly assaulted both his parents will stand trial next month.

Kevin Bartley denies charges of behaving in an aggressive manner, shouting, swearing, smashing a lamp, pushing his mother on the body and hitting his father on the head at a flat in Darwin Place, where Bartley lives with his parents, on July 8 this year.

The 27-year-old appeared in court on Friday for a review of a community payback order (CPO) imposed for an offence in 2015 in which he behaved in a drunken and aggressive manner within the town’s Asda supermarket in October 2015.

Bartley’s solicitor told Friday’s hearing that her client was maintaining his pleas of not guilty to the charges relating to the Darwin Place incident.

She said Bartley had been released from prison two days earlier after successfully appealing against a sentence imposed on an unrelated matter.

But the presiding sheriff told Bartley that “more work needs to be done” to get him away from a pattern of past disorderly behaviour.

Bartley’s agent said the CPO was due to come to an end on November 25 – but Sheriff Maxwell Hendry extended the order by a month to await the outcome of the trial, which is due to take place at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on December 7. He denies those charges.

The solicitor said: “He has utilised his time in custody to the best he could, in that he has been free from using any substances he shouldn’t have been.

“He seems to have sorted himself out and I would ask that the order be allowed to come to an end.”

But Sheriff Hendry told the lawyer: “He tends to have a pattern of behaviour – he behaves himself for a period, then abuses alcohol or other substances, commits crime, goes into prison, detoxes, comes back out and we start all over again.

“I’m surprised that you feel confident he has had a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion.”

The sheriff told Bartley: “My view is that more work needs to be done, but I will wait to see the outcome of the trial and will review the situation at that stage.”