A YOUNG man suffering from schizophrenia was jailed for eight months after embarking on a wrecking spree which saw a dozen cars vandalised, including a Ferrari and a Mercedes.
Martin MacKenzie admitted causing damage costing nearly £10,000 to vehicles parked in the street after scratching their sides and bonnets.
The court heard that the 21-year-old was schizophrenic, telling doctors that he heard voices in his head and others were out to kill him. But despite a plea from a psychiatrist that MacKenzie should receive treatment for his illness outside prison, a sheriff jailed him yesterday.
MacKenzie had originally been charged alongside his mother, June, 55, following a spate of vandal attacks which was alleged at that time to have involved 75 cars and £150,000 of damage.
His mother's not guilty plea was accepted at Linlithgow Sheriff Court earlier this month while her son admitted 12 charges of malicious damage on vehicles.
Mr MacKenzie was caught by police following the attacks in the upmarket Wester Inch Village estate in Bathgate on April 15, near his home in Leyland Road.
He had been on a 12-month probation order for a breach of the peace and appeared in court yesterday from custody.
Depute procurator fiscal Helen McCannell said: "It was 1.10am when a lady living in the street looked out the window of her front bedroom. She saw the accused in the driveway of a house opposite where a Ferrari 430 and a Fiat 500 were parked.
"The lady saw the accused scratch the sides and bonnets of the vehicles before calmly walking off. She alerted her husband who went to speak to the neighbour opposite before calling the police. She went to her own car, which was a Mercedes, and noticed that it was scratched. The police arrived quickly and found the accused crouched by the side of a house."
MacKenzie's solicitor, Daryl Lovie, said: "Mr MacKenzie suffers from schizophrenia. There were behavioural concerns since he was a schoolboy. In March 2008 his mother, his former co-accused, was concerned about him never leaving the house. An assessment found a high level of depression and anxiety, and he was treated by his GP.
"He was brought by police to St John's Hospital in Livingston in June 2008 after telling officers he was hearing voices.
"He said that he had been hearing voices for three or four months. He complained that people were reading his mind.
"Mr MacKenzie . . . destroyed his medication in the belief that his mother was tampering with them. He displayed paranoia about people trying to kill him."
His solicitor said MacKenzie was placed on anti-psychotic medication by doctors last September.
Mr Lovie added: "He is a young man with no troubles to seek. He clearly requires a high-level of assistance in terms of social work and psychiatry."
Sheriff Kinloch told MacKenzie: "This was vandalism on a large scale. There was many thousands of pounds of damage and untold inconvenience in the local community. You have not put forward an explanation for what you did. Unfortunately, you have been diagnosed with a mental illness. But the social inquiry report does not establish a correlation between this illness and the damage."
Sheriff Kinloch sentenced him to eight months in prison for the vandalism and breach of bail.
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