A “very successful” businessman who gave social workers the impression he could buy his way out of jail has been allowed to walk free from court again.
Car salesman Christopher Dickson dodged a prison sentence after a court heard he was earning £120,000 per year and employed nearly 30 people at his family dealership.
Dickson was allowed to avoid jail despite a lengthy record spanning 18 years and including a drunken road rage attack on a young family and repeatedly ignoring driving bans.
Sheriff Krista Johnson said: “My powers are relatively limited in how long I can send you to jail for this particular offence. I would be required to discount sentence by one-third. I have to think what’s best to protect the public.
“That would have the effect of reducing your sentence and I am aware of how much time you might actually spend in custody. Part of my thinking is that if I just jail you today that might have the effect of stopping you doing this again and work as a deterrent.
“The other aspect is that if something is available to me to allow you to continue your employment I have to consider that possibility. It must be very apparent to you if you continue to do this you will eventually run up against a sheriff who will jail you.”
The sheriff told Perth Sheriff Court: “I’m told that he is a very successful man with a successful business and I would hate to give the impression that somehow gives him a ticket to avoid a custodial sentence.
“I have had a flavour of that from the social work report. I have a flavour that this is a man who seems to act in a way that might suggest he thinks his circumstances are always going to get him out of jail.”
Dickson, 37, of Moulin, Perthshire – who has nine previous convictions – was banned from driving for 40 months and placed on a curfew from 7pm to 7am for six months.
He admitted driving an eight-year-old Fiat 500 on the A9 Perth to Inverness road without insurance and while disqualified on 7 October this year.
Fiscal depute Bill Kermode told the court Dickson drove past police and when they pulled him over they discovered he was banned from driving.
Solicitor Robin Beattie, defending, said: “He is a very successful businessman. He earns £120,000 per year. He is doing very well and the business employs 27 people.
“I accept the custodial threshold has been met here. He has been convicted several times of offences related to his driving. A restriction of liberty order would be his last chance saloon.
“A non-custodial sentence would avoid massive consequences for him, his family, the business and potentially the employees. He is in a position to pay a substantial fine.
“He is engaged to be married. It is no doubt a serious matter, having regard to his record. The family have taken steps to help him with his appalling decision making.”
Dickson has previously been banned on five occasions – with bans totalling over 17 years – at four different courts across Scotland. His motor racing driver father Norman Dickson has also been convicted with driving offences.
Previously, Christopher Dickson defied a ban within weeks of it being imposed after being found guilty of deliberately crashing into a family car.
He was initially banned for 40 months and fined £5,000 pounds in February 2017 – but was spotted back at the wheel a few weeks later.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told him he had come close to being jailed for the flagrant breach of a court order and told Dickson to carry out 150 hours unpaid work.
He also increased the ban to five years and placed him under social work supervision for six months. Dickson admitted driving while banned.
In the original case, Dickson bragged to his victims that he had been drinking all day and he left three young children screaming in fear as he threatened to slap a woman in the car with them.
His trial was told that Dickson had been at a boozy lunch and golf outing at Gleneagles earlier in the day. Dickson wrote off his victims’ car and then arrogantly drank a glass of wine in front of police officers as they tried to breathalyse him.
Sheriff Gillian Wade told Dickson: “You have now accumulated a significant number of road traffic offences and a significant criminal record. It is nothing to be proud of.
“You have five convictions under road traffic legislation and I consider three of them to be serious matters. This is your second drink driving offence within 10 years. You have a cavalier attitude to road traffic matters”
Witnesses Alexander and Julia Nicoll said Dickson had driven his £40,000 Mercedes aggressively for a few streets in Perth prior to an incident which wrote off their Ford Galaxy.
The couple told the court that as they turned right from Marshall Place onto Edinburgh Road, Dickson cut in front of them before slamming on his brakes, causing them to run into the back of his C-class estate.
They said that Dickson got out of his car and was banging their windows and swearing as three children cowered in the back seats. Mrs Nicoll said Dickson smelled of alcohol.
He bragged that he had been on a day-long binge drinking session before telling her he would give her a slap. Constable Martin Buchan said they had traced him at home. Dickson said he had had alcohol.
Officers had to wait 20 minutes to perform a breath test in order to get an accurate reading. PC Buchan told the court: “He said that since he arrived home he had consumed a quantity of alcohol. He had had two tins of lager and a glass or so of wine.
“There was a glass of wine sitting where he had been watching the telly. As we waited he became a bit restless about us being there and the accusations and he drank the rest of the glass, which was unfortunately on the table in front of him.
“When he picked up the glass we said ‘don’t do that’ but it was too late.” Dickson admitted during evidence that he told Mrs Nicoll he would slap her but claimed he was entitled to because there was a confrontation with the couple.
Sheriff Wade found him guilty of drink driving in Perth on 28 February. He was also found guilty of careless driving by causing a crash, and behaving in a threatening manner by shouting, swearing and uttering threats of violence.
The sheriff noted that Dickson had a previous drink driving conviction from 2008. Dickson was fined in 2019 for kicking a black labrador in the street. The incident was caught on dashcam and he was arrested after footage went viral on social media.
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