A mugger claimed to be a police officer before robbing a man at knife-point on his own doorstep.
Joseph Merchant pounced on the stranger who had stepped outside his home on the Spital in Aberdeen to have a cigarette in the early hours of the morning.
The 46-year-old leapt from a car and stated “I’m police” before grabbing his victim, pushing him up against a wall and holding a five-inch knife to his neck.
Merchant went through the man’s pockets and, it having become apparent he was not a real police officer, a struggle broke out before the man managed to run back into his flat.
He was later identified after his DNA was found on the victim’s clothes.
Fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the incident happened around 2 am on July 30 last year.
Woman ‘felt someone jump on her from behind’
She said: “The complainer was outside his home on Spital, Aberdeen, smoking a cigarette.
“A red car stopped on the street in front of him. A male got out of the driver’s seat and stated ‘I’m police’.
“The male then grabbed the complainer by the left shoulder and arm, turning him round and pushed him up against a wall.
“The male had a knife approximately five inches long in his left hand which he held to the neck of the complainer.”
The terrified man took his mobile phone out of his pocket and placed it on a wall in front of him.
Merchant kept repeating “police, police” as he went through his victim’s pockets and removed a packet of cigarettes.
Ms MacVicar said: “The complainer then realised the male was not police so picked up his mobile phone from the wall.”
Merchant then tried to take the phone from him and a struggle began, lasting three or four minutes.
The victim struggled with the fake policeman but managed to run back inside and call the real police.
Merchant ‘turned his life around’ before ‘blip’
In an earlier incident, on June 26 last year, Merchant, acting along with a female, assaulted and robbed a woman walking home from a night out on Albyn Lane.
Ms MacVicar said the woman “felt someone jump on her from behind” and fell down, hitting her head and jaw.
She said: “She was aware of someone pinning her to the ground so she couldn’t get up.
“She felt someone going through her pockets.”
Her phone, cigarettes, lighter and headphones were all taken from her.
The incident lasted between one and two minutes before the two attackers fled.
The woman managed to walk home and later contacted the police.
Merchant was snared after his DNA was found on the woman’s jacket.
Merchant admitted charges of assault to injury and robbery and assault and robbery.
He also admitted two charges of abduction, assault and robbery over another incident, which his brother Harry was also involved in.
His brother was handed a 36-month prison term and a 12-month supervised release order at an earlier hearing.
Defence agent Liam Mcallister, representing Joseph Merchant, said his client had been on bail with a curfew condition since September last year.
Victims were strangers
He added that Merchant had previously been a frequent offender but had “turned his life around” until experiencing “significant trauma” and becoming a widower.
Mr Mcallister described the new offences as a “blip along the way when he fell back into drug misuse to the extent he has little to no recollection of these offences”.
In the case of the mugging on Albyn Lane, most of the violence was committed by the female involved and Merchant had gone through her pockets.
He added that his client had been the driver in the abduction incidents and had given stolen items back to the victims.
Sheriff Morag McLaughlin told Merchant, of St Fitticks Road, Aberdeen: “I’m not going to impose a community sentence on you, Mr Merchant.
“It seems to me this course of conduct you pursued in relation to people who were strangers to you is such that the only appropriate way to deal with it is a custodial sentence.”
She ordered him to be jailed for a total of 24 months.
For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen as well as crime and breaking incidents, join our Facebook group.