http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1048430?UserKey=
By Jamie Buchan
Press & Journal
Published: 27/01/2009
A Celtic fan accused of trying to rob a north-east grocery store with a knife claimed he was at home that night watching his team on TV, a trial heard yesterday.
Steven Cassie described the match to police, telling them Celtic had won 1-0 and even named the scorer but detectives told him that Rangers, not Celtic, had been playing that night.
Cassie, 27, of 7 Arisaig Drive, Fraserburgh, is accused of attempting to rob the Spar in the town’s St Modan’s Place on January 31 last year.
He denies the charge at Peterhead Sheriff Court.
A jury of nine women and six men heard that Cassie told police he had mostly spent the night of the alleged crime at the house he shared with Christopher Slater.
Giving evidence on day two of the trial, Sergeant David Crowther, of Grampian Police, said Cassie was “adamant” during an interview that he had been watching Celtic.
Cassie also told the former detective constable that he had left the house at about 6.30pm to visit his mother, Gloria Dimmock. When police called her to check, she said it was after 9pm before he came.
The jury heard that at about 8.40pm, a man wearing a hood and hiding his face with a scarf, walked into the Spar and demanded money from a shop assistant.
One employee told the court she thought the would-be robber was tanned and possibly Asian or Chinese.
Sgt Crowther said that on the store’s CCTV, the raider could be seen wearing a light, checked shirt under a blue sports jacket. He said police found a similar shirt at Cassie’s home, but no jacket.
They also seized six knives in a kitchen cutlery drawer, but witnesses in the shop said they could not identify any of them as the one that was used by the masked man.
Cassie’s housemate, Mr Slater, initially told police that he had stayed at home with Cassie that night. When police told him he had been spotted in a lane near the shop that evening, he admitted he was there with Cassie.
He told police that Cassie had been planning to rob a drug dealer, but the dealer never showed up. He then went home, leaving Cassie standing in the lane.
In the witness box yesterday, Mr Slater, 39, said he could only “vaguely remember” the police interview. He said his memory had been hampered by a drink and drug problem. Asked if he lied to police, he told fiscal depute Felicity Primrose: “I might have done. I would have sold my soul to get out of the police station.”
After being shown film of the interview, when he told police Cassie was going to rob the drug dealer “because that’s the kind of guy he is”, Mr Slater said: “I’m shocked and sickened by that answer. Who am I to say that about anybody?”
The trial, before Sheriff Marysia Lewis, continues.
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