A FORMER professional ice hockey player has been ordered to pay compensation to a taxi driver whose window he punched.
Ryan Ford – who used to play for Braehead Paisley Pirates – punched the window “in frustration” after a row with friends during a night out.
The 30-year-old pled guilty to malicious damage on the first day of his trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
The court heard that he had been at a friend’s house with a number of people – including his girlfriend – before falling out with them and deciding to go home.
As he was walking home, his girlfriend and her friends passed him in a taxi on West Granton Road as they made their way into the city centre and tried to persuade Ford to join them.
The court heard: “He refused to do so and this led to a more heated verbal argument.
“Had there been a wall there that he might have thrashed out at he would have.
“It wasn’t directed at anyone but as he passed the taxi window he punched it once and cracked it.”
Ford cut himself when he punched the window just before midnight on December 12 last year and blood left on the pane helped police identify him.
Depute fiscal Claire Bottomley told the court that the owner of the taxi had to pay £100 to fix the damage.
Sentencing him, Sheriff Alisdair Noble said that he had a “considerable” record, including serious road traffic offences, violence and dishonesty.
Ford was fined £180 and ordered to pay £100 in compensation in instalments of £20 per week.
In court he was described as a stonemason, but Ford played ice hockey professionally before quitting last year.
The goalkeeper spent most of his professional career playing for Edinburgh Capitals after joining the team in 1999.
In 2003 he was called up to the Great Britain squad to travel to Austria.
REPORT: Cara Sulieman
