A teenager has been banned from his home town in the face of allegations that he targeted staff at Perth College UHI with chilling death threats.
Student Nathan Chalmers is said to have terrified employees at the college, telling one woman that he had access to a sniper rifle and had studied shooting positions from which he could pick off a co-worker.
He is also accused of claiming to have a ”hit list” and of naming one individual in particular whom he intended to kill.
Chalmers (19) denies the charge but has spent the past month in custody after a sheriff decided the allegations were so serious that he should not be allowed his liberty.
He was due to have appeared for trial on Monday, but the case was adjourned until the new year after Perth Sheriff Court heard there were issues surrounding the admissibility into evidence of interviews given by the accused to police.
The matter will not be resolved until a landmark judgment, likely to impact upon hundreds of cases, is delivered by the Supreme Court.
Given the delay, the Crown said it would not continue to oppose bail for Chalmers, on the condition that he not enter Perth unless required to do so for future court proceedings.
Solicitor John McLaughlin said his client had been a student at the college but his studies were now on hold pending both the outcome of the criminal case and a determination by the college as to whether he could resume his further education.
”Mr Chalmers will not be able to return to the college until this matter has been concluded,” Mr McLaughlin told the court. ”He will be staying with his grandfather in Dumfries.”
Chalmers, formerly of Ballantine Place, Perth, denies behaving in a threatening and abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm at the Perth College halls of residence on Crieff Road between September 16 and 18.
He is accused of telling a member of staff that he had access to a sniper rifle and had determined sniper vantage points and lines of sight to the union office at the college.
The charge further states that he told the employee that he was going to shoot members of staff there and kill one named individual in particular who was on his hit list.
The woman involved is said to have left in a state of fear and alarm.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis bemoaned the delay in the case and also questioned the decision to keep the accused in custody in light of known concerns over The Crown case’s ability to proceed.
”If this allegation proves to be well founded then it is a very serious one, particularly in light of events that have occurred in other places and indeed previous events that have occurred in this country,” he said.
”It would raise an issue of whether some sort of psychological treatment should be carried out if guilt were established.
”At the moment, however, we have a situation here where a 19-year-old man with no previous convictions has been deprived of his liberty for a month.
”I am now being told that, because of the Supreme Court not yet making a decision, he should be let out on bail.”
The sheriff eventually agreed to continue the case and an intermediate diet was set for January 26, by which time it is hoped a decision will have been made on the admissibility of the interview.
Chalmers has been excused attendance on that date, but will have to return for trial on February 22.
He was released on bail to an address in Laggan, Dumfries.