A Perthshire stalker has been placed on a curfew after a sheriff gave him a final chance to stay out of jail.
James Torrie will be confined to his home from 7pm to 7am until late May when he will return to Forfar Sheriff Court after an offence against his ex-partner earlier this year.
Torrie, of MacDonald Crescent, Rattray, admitted engaging in conduct which caused the woman fear and alarm on January 18 and 19 at addresses in Carnoustie and Rattray by contacting a man and a woman to find out where the woman had been taken in a taxi.
The 40-year-old appeared from custody at Forfar, where solicitor Brian Bell admitted a social work report was not “the most positive” for Torrie in terms of his attitude towards the victim.
“He does accept that his conduct will have put his ex-partner into a state of fear and understands the implications of his conduct,” said Mr Bell. “He struggles with the acceptance that the relationship is over, but he now accepts that he must leave this lady alone.”
Sheriff Pino Di Emidio told Torrie: “You have pled guilty to an offence of stalking which is very concerning given that you had only recently been put on a Community Payback Order.
“I thought about imposing a substantial period of imprisonment because it is just not on to cause the fear and alarm that he did and the court will just not tolerate it.”
Sheriff Di Emidio said he wanted the accused to be given the opportunity to move on with the existing non-custodial order.
“You have had time in custody to reflect on your conduct and I am not taking up the option to impose imprisonment at this stage,” he said.
“I am going to defer sentence for three months and what I want to see is whether you make progress with this order, particularly the supervision aspects designed to deal with domestic offending of this nature.
“I want to make it clear that if there are any indications there have been more difficulties it is likely that it will be dealt with by a substantial period of imprisonment.”