A COWDENBEATH man smashed a window in his neighbour’s door in a row about noise from a ‘scatter flat’.

Richard Moffat was drunk when he smashed a glass panel in a door with a hammer.

He then became abusive to another neighbour, who was passing by at the time of the row, telling him to “have a stroke and die”.

As a result, Moffat, 54, of Thistle Street, appeared in the dock at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

He admitted that on September 26, at Thistle Street, he shouted, swore and damaged a door.

Depute fiscal Katherine Fraser said a couple had been returning home from the shops at 4.20pm when they saw their neighbour, Moffat, in the garden. He was standing arguing with another neighbour who was at his window.

Moffat said to the man who was arriving back home with his wife: “You should have a stroke and die, a*******.”

“This left both of them shocked,” added the depute. “The accused was already having a heated argument with the other neighbour.”

Police were contacted and arrived to find Moffat “heavily under the influence of alcohol, shouting and swearing”.

It was seen that a glass panel had been smashed and Moffat told officers: “I smashed the window, I just had enough.”

He told police the other neighbour’s anti-social behaviour had provoked him.

Defence solicitor Alexander Flett said his client reacted to the behaviour of the neighbour in a ‘scatter flat’.

“As these other neighbours came back, there was a comment made to Mr Moffat that he should shut up and go into his house. He responded to that and also accepts he broke the window.”

Sheriff Alastair Brown told unemployed Moffat that what he said had been “very offensive”. He fined him £140.