Drug Addict Banned from Mecca Bingo Hall

Earlier this month, a Scottish drug addict was banned from entering his local Mecca Bingo after he was found guilty in an Edinburgh court of breaching the peace. 32-year-old Stephen Greenhorn ran into the toilets of the bingo hall on Manderston Street, in Leith, Edinburgh, mistakenly believing he was being chased by CID officers, desperate for one final fix before he was apprehended. However, members of the club’s security team spotted his entrance into the facilities and followed in hot pursuit, where they found him hiding in a cubicle and shouted threateningly while waving an uncapped hypodermic needle. He is said to have shouted to “[not] come near me,” and not to open the door as he was “going to stick this in my veins.”

The concerned security staff promptly contacted the police, whom Mr. Greenhorn told to leave him alone and allow him to get his fix. Despite several requests for the gentleman to drop the syringe, when police officers finally forced open the toilet door, they found Mr. Greenhorn with his trousers down, trying to inject his groin area. After waving syringe at the officers, the man continued trying to inject himself although he was thwarted by one office who struck his hand to prevent him from doing so. The man then started bleeding from his groin onto the floor of the toilet – a situation which Frank Crowe, the Sheriff at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, described as “as sick as you can get.”

When he appeared at the court last month, Mr. Greenhorn pleaded guilty to both charges of breaching the peace at Mecca Bingo in Leith in mid-April 2013, although his sentence was initially deferred while further background reports were undertaken.

The man’s defence team told the court that he had successfully undergone a Drug Treatment and Testing Order back in 2007 and had managed to free himself of his drug addiction. Subsequently, he gained a full-time job, but was laid off. After gaining another job as a cleaner, Mr. Greenhorn lost his home and began sleeping rough while falling back into old habits, and taking speed and ecstasy. It is alleged that he began to suffer from paranoia, and had only taken to extreme measures at the bingo hall as he “was convinced he was being taken in to custody.”

The Sheriff ruled that Mr. Greenhorn must now undertake a fifteen-month DTTO and is banned from visiting Mecca Bingo in Leith for a period of twelve months.

www.meccabingo.com