A Scottish man who telephoned an asylum seekers’ hotel in Falkirk and warned “Get these people out, we’re coming” was spared custody after a sheriff said his threats were less public than those made online by others.
Forty-year-old Scott Wyllie admitted a statutory breach of the peace at Falkirk Sheriff Court over a call made at 11:55 p.m. last November to the Hotel Cladhan. The call was automatically diverted to reception at the Park Hotel, part of the same group, and was answered by a male night worker who recorded the tirade and contacted police.
Prosecutors told the court Wyllie told the night worker: “Get these people out of your hotel, because we’re coming. Yous can’t be doing this to kids. You can’t be raping girls, you can’t be raping boys. We’re f---ing coming. Be scared. Be very f---ing scared.” The worker hung up and reported the call; Wyllie was later arrested.
Defence counsel Simon Hutchison said Wyllie, a married father of three from Stenhousemuir, Stirlingshire, had largely led a blameless life and was remorseful. Hutchison told the court that three weeks before the call Wyllie had been told by a friend that the friend’s son had been severely sexually assaulted by two people who had been staying at the Cladhan, and that Wyllie had been upset and intoxicated when he placed the call.
Sheriff Paul Ralph, who presided over the case, acknowledged the charged atmosphere in Falkirk following recent high-profile incidents and demonstrations over asylum accommodation. He contrasted Wyllie’s phone call with online posts, noting that other people who made public calls to violence had received custodial sentences.
“Had your expression of these views involved an element of more public display you’d have found the court almost bound to have considered a deterrent sentence,” the sheriff said, but added he was prepared to draw back from custody on this occasion. He sentenced Wyllie to 120 hours of unpaid work and ordered him to pay £200 in compensation to the hotel worker who took the call.
The Cladhan Hotel has been the focus of repeated protests in recent weeks involving pro- and anti-migration demonstrators. Feelings in the town were intensified after the conviction in June of Sadeq Nikzad, a 29-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who was found guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl in the town centre.
The sheriff referenced a separate case in which a local councillor’s wife received a custodial term after posting on social media, underscoring the court’s approach to threats and inflammatory public commentary. The magistrate told Wyllie that, regardless of perceived grievances, the manner of expressing threats was unacceptable and could provoke serious public harm.
Wyllie’s sentence of community service and compensation reflects the court’s assessment of his actions as serious but not meeting the threshold for immediate imprisonment, given the private nature of the threat by telephone rather than wider dissemination online. He was ordered to complete the unpaid work and to comply with any further conditions imposed by the court.