A knife-wielding man who tried to get into a learner driver’s car during a “terrifying” episode has been jailed.
Dale Smith bared a knife at the car’s occupants in Brechin High Street because he thought its supervised driver was “protesting” that he had walked in front of the car.
The 31-year-old then approached and tried a door before the panicked driver sped off on May 7 this year.
Smith appeared from custody at Forfar Sheriff Court and admitted an indictment alleging that he caused fear and alarm to the car’s three occupants.
Fiscal depute Trina Sinclair said: “At around 10.30pm on Saturday the seventh of May this year, witnesses Mitchell, Shepherd and Spark were driving up the High Street in Brechin.
“Witness Mitchell stopped to give way to another vehicle coming the other way, and as he did so, he observed the accused stepping into the middle of the road and he had to brake for him.
“The accused lifted up his top and he removed a knife from the right waistband of his trousers.
“He presented the knife to them.
“He approached the vehicle and tried to open a door but Mr Mitchell was able to lock the door and drive off.”
Appearing for Smith, solicitor Nick Markowski said his client had been in custody since the offence.
He said: “You’ll see from his record that he is a man who has spent a lot of his life in custody in England.
“He became friendly with a family in Brechin, was offered a job and moved there to break the cycle of offending.
“On the Saturday he had gone out with some friends to the local funfair in Montrose, the switchies as they’re known locally.
“He’d come back and his flatmate was out so he was locked out, and went to the pub.”
Mr Markowski said his client had been taking co-codamol for back pain and had “little recollection” of the incident.
He had thought the driver was spinning his wheels and “protesting” at him as he crossed the road.
“He accepts it would have been frightening for the people,” he added.
Sheriff Gregor Murray sentenced Smith to 402 days in prison, backdated to May 7.
He told Smith the encounter would have been “terrifying” for the car’s occupants, and the public “must be protected” from those carrying knives.
“You have a significant record for violence, and you were just out of prison,” he said.
“You were given a chance at a job and you failed extraordinarily to take that chance.”
