A serial offender has narrowly avoided jail for stealing hundreds of pounds worth of goods from an Aberdeen supermarket while struggling to come to terms with being involved in a fatal crash.
Former soldier Scott Fowler was caught walking out of Asda with a trolley full of stolen items. He also admitted three further charges of resisting arrest and attacking two security guards at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on New Year’s Day.
Yesterday his solicitor told the city’s sheriff court his client had turned his life around after a troubled youth – only to see it spiral out of control when the car he was driving was involved in a smash 18 months ago.
Sheriff Kenneth Stewart told the 34-year-old he could have been facing jail – but instead told him he would give him one last chance to “take the correct path at the crossroads he was at in his life”.
The court heard the recovering drug addict had not offended since he was released from a previous prison sentence in 2004.
Following his time behind bars, Fowler, who developed a heroin addiction at the age of 19, set out on the straight and narrow and even graduated from college.
But the court heard yesterday that his life was ruined once more in 2013 when he was involved in a fatal crash on the city’s South Deeside Road.
Fowler, originally from Banchory, was not found to be responsible for the accident.
However the shock of it threw him back into drug addiction – and led him into a life of crime.
Yesterday solicitor Mike Monro said that his client was determined to “choose the right path” and stop offending again.
He said he had received a taste of custody, while he was on remand waiting to be sentenced, and said he was keen not to return to prison.
Sheriff Stewart said he was prepared to give him “one final chance”.
He said: “Either you revert back to the kind of behaviour which brought you to jail as an adolescent or you stop this now.
“I’m prepared not to send you to jail. You have had time on remand which has given you time to see what custody is like again. You are being given a chance to make the correct turning at the crossroads which you are undoubtedly at.
Fowler, of 10 Cadenhead Place, Aberdeen, was placed under supervision of the social work for 18 months and ordered to carry out 215 hours of unpaid work within nine months.