A thief who coughed in a police officer’s face and wished Covid on his kids has been jailed for 10 months.
Iain Main, 32, was caught red-handed hiding behind a car with a stolen purse after officers were called to a theft from the staff tea room of an Inverness shop.
But when an officer approached him he ripped off his mask and coughed in the policeman’s face and said: “I have Covid, I hope your kids get it.”
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told Inverness Sheriff Court that officers were called after a shop worker found Main in the staffroom of the Ben Wyvis Kilts shop and asked him to leave, only to then discover a colleague’s purse was missing.
Police attended and searched for Main, who they found concealed behind a parked car in a gated private parking area attempting to discard items in his possession – including the stolen purse.
‘It was an empty threat’
It was when officers got close to him that the assault occurred.
Neil Wilson, mitigating for Main who appeared via videolink from custody having been remanded at an earlier hearing, told the court that his client had an intermittent problem with drugs but “appeared to be moving in the right direction” before the theft.
Addressing the assault charge Mr Wilson said there was not much he could say, apart from the fact that it was: “An empty threat.”
Sheriff Sara Matheson jailed Main for 10 months, backdating the sentence to July 21.