Children’s playground manager locked girl in DOG CAGE and attacked toddler – but was spared jail despite admitting assaults on three youngsters
- Peter Mathieson, 40, attacked a toddler and pulled a child out of bed by the legs
- He kept his job in East Dunbartonshire Council, Glasgow, despite the convictions
- Bosses suspended him following alleged threats he made to a colleague
A violent playground supervisor who locked a girl in a dog cage has been spared jail despite admitting attacks on three children.
Peter Mathieson, 40, was suspended from East Dunbartonshire Council’s cleaning depot in May – but only following a row with a colleague and not due to his conviction three months earlier.
But workers at the Street Sense unit based in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, are now threatening to walkout if bosses allow him to return.
Mathieson was convicted of assaulting three children – aged between one and 13 – from 2011 to 2018. He attacked a toddler, pulled a child out of bed by the legs and forced a girl into a dog cage – but only got a community payback order.
Peter Mathieson, 40, pictured, is a boss overseeing the upkeep of playgrounds in the council’s Street Sense unit based in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow
Court papers showed Mathieson also got a £135 fine and a one-year non-harassment order at Airdrie Sheriff Court last June after pleading guilty to behaving aggressively towards a woman.
He was only suspended by council bosses in May after a confrontation about the convictions with a colleague at the East Dunbartonshire Council’s cleaning depot.
The thug, from Auchinloch, Lanarkshire, had been confronted by a member of staff about his convictions for assaulting the woman and children.
A source in the council told The Sun: ‘Word got around about Mathieson being done in court but he was still working with us.’
They told how an employee went into Mathieson’s office and called him a ‘woman beater’.
But critics are demanded he is sacked from his position, where he has access to schools to arrange cleaning and maintenance.
Council workers are threatening a strike if he is allowed to continue working.
He was only suspended by council bosses in May after colleague called him a ‘woman beater’ at the East Dunbartonshire Council’s cleaning depot
Sources have called Mathieson a ‘bully’ and a ‘thug’ who should have been ‘booted long ago’.
Local MSP Rona Mackay, co-convener of a party group on violence against women and children, branded it ‘sickening’.
She said: ‘There are serious questions to be asked.’
East Dunbartonshire Council spokesperson Ann Davie said: ‘We do not comment on individual members of staff.’