A man who has been hauled in front of the courts on two separate occasions for shooting seagulls in the street has been warned that his bizarre behaviour could land him in jail.
Bryan Maclennan used a slingshot to fire ball bearings at the birds then collected their unconscious bodies in bags.
On another occasion, he even kept an injured bird in a cage on top of his freezer.
Now a sheriff has now warned Maclennan that if he continues to target the birds he’ll be the one behind bars.
Back in trouble
Maclennan, 34, appeared for sentencing at Tain Sheriff Court having admitted a single charge under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, following an incident at Kirkside, Alness, on July 24 of this year.
He had pled guilty at a hearing in September to intentionally or recklessly injuring the seagull by firing ball bearings from a catapult.
The plea came less than a year after Maclennan was fined £940 and ordered to surrender his weapons when he admitted three similar charges under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
In January of this year, the court was told that Maclennan had been spotted acting strangely by police in Invergordon the previous May.
When they stopped him he was attempting to dispose of an injured herring gull he had been carrying in a plastic bag.
A search of his home uncovered slingshots, ballbearings, herring gull eggs and an injured bird in a cage on top of a freezer.
‘I will jail him for as long as I can get away with’
Sheriff Gary Aitken warned him that the behaviour must stop saying: “It will end today or it will end in jail.”
The sheriff continued: “It is bizarre behaviour in the extreme.
“It is not many people manage to get themselves a conviction under this legislation, and considerably fewer manage to get two under the same circumstances.”
Sheriff Aitken placed Maclennan on a structured deferred sentence for two months but it came with a warning: “If he is back in front of me for analogous offending I will jail him for as long as I can get away with.”
The case will call again in December.