A drug addict pulled a knife on a woman at an Aberdeen bus stop and threatened to kill her in a drug deal which “went wrong”, a court has heard.
Scott Mercer, 32, was jailed after admitting assaulting the woman and attempting to rob her on Great Northern Road on March 21.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard differing accounts of the circumstances surrounding the incident, but Mercer’s solicitor, Graham Morrison, said his client had met he woman, and a companion, to buy drugs, but did not have any money.
Mr Morrison said: “There’s nothing good I can say about his record. It totally reflects the life of someone who has been addicted, in his case to heroin but there’s other drugs in there as well, since he was 16.
“His physical and mental health have both noticeably deteriorated.
“This is not just a random attempt to rob someone at a bus stop, the complainer and her companion had been supplying Mr Mercer with drugs once or twice a week for about 12 months and this was just another one of those transactions.
“He’d arranged to buy drugs from them at the bus stop. There’s a lane nearby and that’s where the transactions normally take place.
“What went wrong here is they turned up with the drugs and Mr Mercer didn’t have any money.
“He was desperate for drugs, heroin in particular.
“He didn’t have any money and when they learned that the drugs went back in the bag.
“Things got desperate for him at that point and things got physical between them and the companion.
“The companion hits Mr Mercer with a small bat, described as a truncheon, and at that point he pulls out the knife.”
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Mercer, a prisoner of HMP Grampian, admitted assaulting the woman by seizing hold of her, brandishing a knife at her, demanding drugs from her and attempting to rob her.
Reading the crown’s narrative of events, fiscal depute Felicity Merson said: “About 7pm on March 21 the complainer, aged 31, left her flat and met someone at a nearby bus stop to source pain killers as she was suffering a lot of pain following an incident.
“A friend accompanied her.
“She reached the bus stop and found the accused who was known to her.
“The accused came towards her. She thought he was going to hug her but instead he produced a large knife and brandished it at her.”
Mercer threatened to kill the woman and demanded drugs from her.
She managed to run away but Mercer “ran after her” and when she fell to the ground he “stood over her, brandishing the knife at her and told her she was going to die”.
Mrs Merson said the woman asked Mercer to put he knife away and offered him money, but he continued making threats, saying “I’ll stab you, I’ll stab you”.
When nearby residents shouted at him to stop and said police had been contacted he “tried to pretend there was nothing untoward happening”.
Police traced Mercer the following day.
Mrs Merson added: “The mitigation appears to conflict with the crown’s narrative.
“It would not be appropriate for the crown to accept that here had been any supply from the complainer of drugs to the accused.
“That said, the scenario does seem a little odd.”
Sheriff Philip Mann jailed Mercer for 20 months.
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