The drug addict convicted for a vandal attack on an Elgin mosque has had more than two years added onto the 14-month jail sentence he is currently serving.
Mark McPherson appeared from custody at Elgin Sheriff Court to be sentenced for nine other offences which took place during the last two years.
He was jailed at Inverness Sheriff Court last month for spraying swastikas on the walls of a mosque in Elgin’s South Street.
The 44-year-old drug addict’s life was said to be in “freefall” at the time of the offence, which fell during Ramadan, and when police asked why he’d done it he replied: “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know.”
His latest charges include carrying a lock knife, possession of Class A drugs, assaulting a police officer, demanding someone hands over their prescription medication, behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards his former partner, and breaching bail conditions.
Those offences all took place between March 2019 and January 2021.
Blighted by drug use
McPherson’s defence agent Stephen Carty told the court his client’s drug problem had been “all-encompassing”.
“Use of drugs and class A drugs have blighted him for a considerable period of time,” Mr Carty said.
“It would appear that the drug use situation has been all-encompassing for Mr McPherson, hence how he has found himself in the particularly difficult situation he is in today.”
A catalogue of offences
In April 2019 he seized his ex-partner by the throat in Elgin, throwing her to the ground. That same day he later attempted to head-butt a police officer.
McPherson was found in possession of a knife in Elgin’s Fulmar Road in November 2019, and caught in possession of Class A drug Diamorphine in February 2020, whilst on bail.
He was later found guilty of acting in a threatening and abusive manner towards his former partner again, including struggling with her, in March 2020.
In June 2020 he was charged with acting in an aggressive manner after he entered a home in Elgin’s Pinefield Apartments and, after being asked to leave, removed his top in the car park, challenged a man to a fight and threw stones at a first floor flat.
In January 2021 he broke bail conditions by contacting his ex-partner whom he had been told to stay away from.
And one week later, he was in trouble again after letting himself into a home on Anderson Drive, New Elgin, where he demanded the occupant give him prescription medication.
Jail sentence extended
At yesterday’s sentencing Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov said McPherson engaged in “a catalogue of offending that has been continuing for a number of years notwithstanding the court’s attempts at putting him on the straight and narrow”.
She told him: “You are a nuisance in your offending.”