ROCK SELLER'S HAMMER CRIME

Shop owner damaged protected scientific sites after breaking off expensive minerals to flog

- BY STUART GILLESPIE

A ROCK shop owner has been convicted of damaging protected sites by using a hammer to break off expensive minerals to sell.

In the first conviction of its kind in Scotland, Dagmara Lesiow Lasczcewski was found guilty at Paisley Sheriff Court of three charges of causing reckless damage to two Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

One of the sites, Talnotry Mine SSSI near Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire, is a historic mining location containing limited amounts of mineral-bearing soil.

Specimens extracted from this, and other vulnerable sites, had been broken and advertised for sale online and at Lasczcewski's store, the Caledonian Rock Shop, in Glasgow.