A Fife man who once impersonated ex-gangster Paul Ferris has admitted stealing booze from a Co-op.
Paul Reid appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court by video link from prison to plead guilty to stealing £21.25 worth of alcohol from the shop in Bank Street, Lochgelly, on March 9 this year.
Defence lawyer Alexander Flett said his client’s offending is linked to a longstanding problem with alcohol, though the solicitor highlighted an improvement in his presentation since being away from alcohol in prison.
Mr Flett said Reid, 45, is due to be released in February and does not think he has any other criminal matters in the pipeline.
Sheriff Mark O’Hanlon jailed him for four months for the theft, to run concurrently to his existing prison sentence.
‘Ninja-style’ moves
In May, Reid admitted crimes including displaying “ninja-style moves” in a Dunfermline Chest Heart & Stroke charity shop and challenging a worker there to a fight, as well as threatening to slit their throat.
On another occasion he refused to get off a bus at Dunfermline bus station when drunk and approached members of the public while in possession of a BB gun.
He also threatened to break the neck of a staff member in the Co-op in Lochgelly’s Bank Street.
He was jailed for 12 months.
Paul Ferris claim
In March, Reid was jailed for ten months for various offences including telling two women waiting for a taxi in Cowdenbeath he was notorious mobster-turned-author Paul Ferris and had just been released from prison after nine years.
Intoxicated Reid, formerly of Lochgelly’s South Street, claimed to the strangers he had been behind bars for shooting someone in the head.
Ferris was a trusted associate of Glasgow crime lord Arthur Thompson, who had links to the Kray twins.
He was jailed for gun running and released in 2002. A film of his life story, The Wee Man starring Martin Compston, came out in 2013.
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