Glasgow Man Jailed For Taking Blade To TITP

A Glasgow man who mocked lax security at T in the Park after sneaking in with a blade has been jailed for 20 months.

The music festival's nightshift security manager admitted problems with security meant numerous people were able to sneak in without tickets every year.

One of those was Mark Logan, who was jailed today after a jury found him guilty of taking a Stanley knife blade in secreted inside the back cover of a mobile phone.

Sheriff William Wood told Logan: "You offered an explanation for having the knife which the jury rejected. This is a very busy public event and it's a serious, serious matter."

During his trial, Logan revealed how easy it was to breach security at the music festival after being caught with the weapon hidden inside his phone.

He claimed "hundreds of people" managed to sneak in without tickets - and the festival's own nightshift security manager admitted the event had a problem with unwanted interlopers.

Logan even revealed that he managed to sneak back into this year's event at Balado by scaling the perimeter wall - during the weekend break from the jury trial he was in the middle of.

Logan, 27, from Glasgow, was found guilty of having a blade at T in the Park on 13 July 2013. He was already on bail.

He said: "I skipped in. Hundreds of people do that. I didn't have a ticket. I got in at about 8pm on Friday. There are two fences, like a building site.

"It's massive, all the way round, so there's no way they can cover the full entrance to it."

T in the Park nightshift security manager Kenneth Cooper, 40, said: "We do get people breaching the fences. Every year it does happen. We try our best to stop it, but it does happen."

Bizarrely, Logan claimed that because he did not have a ticket for the festival he should not be subject to its terms and conditions - and therefore was searched illegally.

He tried to get the case thrown out on that technicality, but his bid was rejected and a jury subsequently found him guilty of having an offensive weapon at the festival campsite.

Logan claimed never to have seen the phone before and said it belonged to "a boy called Monty from Kirkcaldy" whose tent he had been sleeping in.

When the back of the mobile phone was removed a two-inch blade was discovered and Logan reacted furiously when he was taken into the police compound at the site.

Outside court, Logan said he had sneaked back into the festival when the trial adjourned for the weekend during July last year and stayed overnight to watch Calvin Harris.

He bragged: "The fence is about seven foot, but they can't watch all of it. Loads of people get in like that. I just threw my bag over and climbed over."