A former police officer is behind bars after bombarding his former partner with threatening messages.
Nicholas Catignani, 44, who left the force disgraced after being caught with drugs several years ago, was jailed at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on Monday.
He had sent the woman a barrage of emails and left voice messages on her phone, one of them saying one of her friends was “a dead man in my language”.
The couple had split up after Catignani, of Hamilton Avenue, St Andrews, relapsed into alcohol addiction and began drinking heavily.
Following a number of text messages from Catignani the woman blocked him from contacting her by phone and on social media.
However, Catignani wanted some items returned to him and repeatedly sent her threatening emails.
At one point he threatened that if property was not returned to him he would be “coming through with a couple of boys”.
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Catignani admitted conduct causing his former partner fear and alarm at Marion Street, Kirkcaldy, and elsewhere between July 8 and August 19.
His solicitor said he had not responded to recent attempts by the woman to contact him and that he accepted the relationship was over.
He suggested that sentence be deferred on Catignani, who he said had a long running alcohol problem.
But Sheriff Grant McCulloch said Catignani had four previous convictions involving domestic aggravation and he was deemed unsuitable for other sentences including unpaid work.
He said: “That opportunity has come and gone. In the circumstances I am left with no other option.”
Sheriff McCulloch sentenced Catignani to six months in prison, which was reduced due to his early guilty plea.
Catignani lost his job with the then Fife Constabulary in the summer of 2009 after being caught with cannabis resin during a disturbance at the home of his estranged wife in St Andrews.
A year later he exercised the rarely used right of a husband to refuse to give evidence against his wife, resulting in Susan Catignani being acquitted of a drink driving charge at Perth Sheriff Court.
