Bathgate teen who racially abused shop workers is fined

Feb 11 2010 West Lothian Courier

A TEENAGER who racially abused workers in a Bathgate shop has been fined.

Alexander Nelson went into the AGS Convenience Store on Cochrane Street on April 17 and shouted and repeatedly uttered racist remarks at the three workers in the store.

Last week at Livingston Sheriff Court Nelson, whose address was given as Dundas Street, Bathgate, pled guilty to acting in a racially aggravated manner.

At an earlier hearing sentence had been deferred on the 17-year-old for him to be of good behaviour.

His solicitor, Kevin Dugan, told the court his client had kept out of trouble for six months adding that the teenager was on a training course and had not gone back in to the shop.

Fining Nelson £180 Sheriff Donald Muirhead said: “You were misbehaving in a shop and normally when someone of 17 misbehaves in a shop and is then of good behaviour for six months I would have admonished them. But your behaviour went beyond this and you called the shopkeepers racist names.

“ It is just not acceptable to use this racist language.”