Terrifying ordeal in farmhouse break-in

One intruder told him: “The police will take seven minutes to get here, in the meantime we are going to do you and your wife.”

The frightened man barricaded himself in his bedroom while the intruders struck the door before the pair drove off with his Mercedes Benz.

At Lanark Sheriff Court on Wednesday Ross Tollan (24) from Wishaw admitted breaking into Gillburn Farm, Elsrickle, on August 6 last year, assaulting Robert McMillan, threatening him with violence, and robbing him of his car key, car and computer.

A plea of not guilty was accepted from Andrew Carson (27) also from Wishaw.

Depute Fiscal Gordon Crawford said that Mr McMillan had been wakened by banging on the door of his house. In the kitchen he found a window broken. Tollan was outside the door, but he had the house keys and was trying to get in.

Tollan was repeatedly shouting that he wanted the keys for the Mercedes.

Mr McMillan told the pair that he had phoned the police, and got the response that they would take seven minutes to get there along with the threat.

His patio window was then broken, and a second man wearing dark clothing with a hood over his face stood there.

“He ran down the hall and into his bedroom where he closed the door then leant against it, barricading himself in to prevent anyone entering the bedroom,” said Mr Crawford.

He phoned the police while someone was banging on the door and trying the handle.

Afterwards he found a spade lying in the kitchen and a kitchen knife in the hallway.

Police officers found the Mercedes on a grass verge on the A721, and Tollan repeatedly revving it in an attempt to drive off. One officer broke a window with his baton, but Tollan still kept revving it, and the officer then used a CS gas spray on him. The two men were taken to Lanark Police Office.

A solicitor for Tollan said that alcohol had been involved. Sentence was deferred and Tollan remanded in custody.