A Dundee man avoided a jail term over a string of brutal assaults on his former partners after a sheriff told him: “To imprison you would not provide sufficient protection to the public.”
Iain Tait held a knife to one of his former partners and threatened to stab her and also stuffed a towel in another victim’s mouth, restricting her breathing.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told Tait had previous convictions for domestic assault and domestic breaches of the peace and had previously served a six-month prison sentence after he breached a community service order.
The 43-year-old, of Byron Crescent, was found guilty of three counts of assaulting the women to their injury, at various locations in Dundee between April 30 2006 and December 23 2013.
He was also found guilty of breach of the peace and of threatening one of the women with violence.
Solicitor Paul Parker Smith said his client had been on remand since his conviction and had, in effect, served the equivalent of a seven and a half month sentence.
Sheriff George Way imposed a community payback order with three years’ supervision and 300 hours of unpaid work and confined Tait to his home between 7pm and 7am for the next 90 days.
He will also have to inform social workers of any relationship he enters into with a woman.
The sheriff said: “These are serious offences but given the length of time it has taken to bring this to a conclusion I have concluded that to imprison you would not provide sufficient protection for the public.”