A drunk who frightened a teenage girl at Arbroath bus station, then called the PC who arrested him “an English p**f”, has been jailed.
At Dundee Sheriff Court Craig Marshall was locked up for six months after he admitted acting in a threatening or abusive and racially aggravated manner.
At 2.30pm on March 29 this year, he was at Arbroath bus station and the girl heard him shouting from behind her.
She turned round and they made eye contact as Marshall said: “You’re dead.”
The girl was “alarmed” and told Marshall to leave the station, which he did.
She contacted police who found the 39-year-old – on bail at the time – at the town’s railway station.
When he was handcuffed he called PC Nicholas Page “an English p**f.”
He repeated the bigoted insult in the police vehicle which took him to West Bell Street HQ.
Unemployed Marshall, of no fixed abode, appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court by video link from HMP Perth, where he has been on remand since the appearing in court the day after his outbursts.
‘No alternative’ to prison
His solicitor Nick Markowski said: “He has a limited recollection of the incident.
“It appears he was under the influence of alcohol.
“He was involved in an argument with someone else and unfortunately the complainer (the girl) appears on the periphery of that.
“She told him to leave her alone and he did – he walked away.”
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael jailed Marshall for six months, backdated to when he was remanded.
He said: “This was bad behaviour towards a 16-year-old girl who was minding her own business.
“There’s no alternative to a custodial sentence.”
History of offending around buses
Marshall has a lengthy history of offending at public transport hubs and towards police.
In 2018, he was thrown off a bus between Dundee and Carnoustie for drinking cider, and verbally abusing the conductor.
He spat in the face of the driver and was sentenced to 100 days in prison.
A year later, he abused a bus driver who refused to take him home in time for his curfew time because he had no money and was jailed again.
In 2020, he was locked up for 21 months after he attacked a shopkeeper and threatened to stab police officers during a Buckfast-fuelled rant.
He told his victim to “go back to his own country” but when he asked where he was from, the shop worker replied “Arbroath.”
Earlier this month, Marshall was sentenced to eight weeks in jail after he breached a curfew imposed for kicking off in an Arbroath Co-op by getting up early to scour streets for discarded cigarette butts.
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