A man who threatened to stab a police constable during a tirade of abuse was jailed for eight months yesterday by a sheriff who said that Scottish courts were “fed up” with people using officers as “punchbags”.
Sheriff Andrew Berry spoke out at Wick Sheriff Court yesterday after hearing of Donald McPhee’s offensive conduct.
Drink-fuelled McPhee, 33, threatened to “put a knife through the officer’s head” and also warned him that if they were in the jungle, he would “kill him”.
Fiscal David Barclay said that the accused also boasted about his “fighting skills” in further attempts to further intimidate PC Stephen George.
McPhee, of Battery Road, Wick, pleaded guilty to threatening or abusive conduct after being arrested in Leishman Avenue, Wick, on December 23.
He also breached a curfew on Christmas Day, a day after it was imposed as a condition of bail, telling police he had ‘forgotten’ about the restriction.
Solicitor Fiona MacDonald said that McPhee was ‘upset’ at having been detained by police but accepted that his conduct was inexcusable.
Sheriff Berry told him: “I think that myself and every other sheriff is fed up with people using the police as punchbags and regarding them as fair game to do anything they like to them and it will simply not be tolerated.”
The sheriff described McPhee’s extensive record as ‘appalling’ and his excuse for breaching his curfew as “an insult to my intelligence” and jailed him for two months on that charge.
The accused was sentenced to six months for abusing Constable George, both sentences to run consecutively.