OBAN MAN BANNED FROM SEEING EX FOR TWO YEARS AFTER BEING FOUND GUILTY OF DRUNKEN ABUSIVE
A drunk Oban man who shouted abuse at his former partner after a night in the pub has been fined and banned from approaching her for two years.Charles Chamberlain, 43, was found guilty after a trial at Oban Sheriff Court of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards his former partner in Dunbeg.
The court heard the couple had recently ended a six-year relationship, but Chamberlain had continued living at the house temporarily while arranging new accommodation.
Evidence was led about events on August 25 2025, after Chamberlain had spent several hours drinking in Oban.
His former partner told the court she saw him walking along the road between Oban and Dunbeg, describing him as “staggering”.
She went to her bedroom and shut the door when she returned home.
Later, when Chamberlain arrived at the house, he came to her bedroom door and asked for a cigarette.
She said: “I gave him a cigarette and I asked him to go to bed because he was drunk.
I told him to get out of my bedroom.” However, the woman said Chamberlain then went downstairs and began singing Rangers’ songs and crashing around in the living room.
She described him as “shouting and screaming to himself.
He was playing with the dog and there were glasses smashing in the kitchen.” “She said: “He was shouting and screaming to himself.
He was playing with the dog and there were glasses smashing in the kitchen.” “..and then shushing himself.” She said she had to phone her best friend and keep him on the line while she prepared to leave.
When she went downstairs, she said Chamberlain began shouting and swearing at her.
In her testimony, she stated: “He started talking about the household bills and said he didn’t want to pay them.
When our relationship ended we agreed he would stay in the house until he could get his own tenancy.
She told the court: “I told him if he didn’t pay the bills he would have to leave.” She said Chamberlain responded with verbal abuse and name-calling, shouting at her for more than an hour.
She added: “He was angry.
He was shouting and tried to come close to me.
It went on for about an hour and a bit.
“ It came to an end when the dog distracted him and I managed to get out of the house.” When defence agent Gareth Bell-Cairns suggested she had invented the incident to force Chamberlain out of the house, she replied simply: “No.” A second witness, the woman’s best friend, told the court he had been speaking to her on FaceTime during the incident.
He said he heard Chamberlain shouting abuse in the background and described him as “seriously intoxicated”.
Chamberlain admitted having “a few drinks” but denied there had been any argument.
He claimed the allegations had been fabricated so his former partner could remove him from the house.
He said: “I think this is more about her wanting me to be in trouble and to have to move out of the house.” Sheriff Ray Small rejected his account and found both prosecution witnesses to be credible and reliable.
He told Chamberlain: “You have very little recollection of what happened due to your level of intoxication.
“I find it beyond the realms of possibility that two people would make up a completely fictitious argument in order to secure the tenancy.
“Frankly, if they had made it up, they would have made a better job of it.” The sheriff said the evidence showed Chamberlain had shouted, sworn and called his former partner names while taking an aggressive stance.
Chamberlain was fined and made subject to a non-harassment order banning him from approaching his former partner for two years.
