How ‘Daft and Dafter’ took a baby by mistake
They were dubbed the "west of Scotland equivalent of Dumb and Dumber" after they abducted a baby from a charity shop - without either of them realising quite what they had done.
Gavin Black and William Wilson sparked a massive police search after they walked out of the shop in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, pushing a pram with a 10-month-old girl inside.
Bizarrely, both men had presumed that the other was the baby's father and they did not realise their mistake until they were stopped by police more than one hour later.
They were charged with theft of a child, or plagium, but the case against Mr Wilson was dropped when he agreed to give evidence against Mr Black. Yesterday, however, a jury at Dumbarton Sheriff Court found Mr Black, of Alexandria, not guilty and he walked free, after spending more than three months in prison.
His solicitor, Roddy Boag, likened the case to the hit comedy movie starring Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey. "These guys are the west of Scotland equivalent of Dumb and Dumber - daft and dafter.
"What actually happened was a series of misadventure and accident. In the old days these guys would have been likened to Laurel and Hardy trying to shift a piano."
The court heard that the baby's mother had parked her daughter's buggy in an aisle of the Marie Curie store while she browsed the shelves on October 25 last year.
Mr Wilson, 52, had also been looking through the rails when Mr Black, 43, walked into the shop and began chatting to him about where he could go to buy drugs.
Mr Wilson agreed to drive Mr Black to a house in Bellsmyre to buy heroin and when the pair left the shop, Mr Black pushed the pram out, presuming that the little girl was with Mr Wilson, who in turn guessed that the baby was with Mr Black.
Mr Wilson, also of Alexandria, told the court: "I held open the door of the shop and he whizzed past me with this pushchair. I just surmised the baby was Gavin's - I never really thought about it."
He added: "I never gave the impression the baby was mine. My girlfriend wants another baby - but I wouldn't steal one from a cancer shop."
In a police interview, Mr Black said: "You would think he would've said something when we walked out the shop. He held open the door so I could push out the buggy."
He later told the court: "If I had heard Willie say your baby' then I would have went straight back to the shop and apologised - I would not have spent three months on remand.
"I had no intention whatsoever of trying to steal her. I genuinely thought she was Willie's wean. I really should have checked - I will never make that mistake again."
The baby's mother, who has three other children, told the court that she had gone to the shop at about 1.20pm to buy Hallowe'en costumes for her elder children.
She said: "I was there for about five minutes. I paid for what I had but, when I turned around, she was gone - she had been taken out the shop. I asked some people in the shop if they had seen her before running around the store and out into the Main Street.
"I was just about to head back to the shop but saw two police officers and told them what had happened. I could not believe this had happened - I was in shock."
More than 50 police officers and a helicopter were involved in the search for the youngster. Meanwhile, Mr Black and Mr Wilson, who had no idea that they were the focus of such a large scale search, drove to the house in Bellsmyre so that Mr Black could buy a bag of heroin.
In a taped interview, he told police that while he smoked the heroin, a woman who lived in the house took the baby for a walk to the local shop. Around half an hour later, Mr Black and Mr Wilson drove, with the baby once again in the car, to a school in Dumbarton to collect another child.
They were stopped there by police, who arrested them and took the baby, who was later examined and found to be in perfect health, to Alexandria police station where she was reunited with her mother at around 3pm.
Stupid, stupid feckers!!
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