Camelon call: 'I will put a knife through your neck'

Robert McFarlane (43) appeared at Falkirk Sheriff Court on Thursday, having admitted behaving in a threatening manner – making threats to kill and threats to damage property – in Kilbirnie Terrace, Denny, on December 4, 2019.

Procurator fiscal depute India MacLean said: “It was 8.30am when the woman received a phone call from the accused – who was the husband of her friend. He began to call her names and began to threaten her, calling her a whore and a tramp.

"He said ‘come to my door tonight and I will put a knife through your neck’ and added ‘I will come to your house and set it on fire’. He then hung up. Minutes later she received a text message from the accused saying ‘your kid will get it’.”

Police were contacted and McFarlane, 102 Carmuirs Avenue, Camelon, told them he had no intention of carrying out any of his threats.

Simon Hutchison, defence solicitor, said: “He said to police immediately he didn’t mean what he said. He has significant issues.”

Mr Hutchison added there was some matter about a debt collection – and sending someone round to his door to collect it – which set McFarlane off and led to him making his angry phone calls and leaving his threatening text messages.

Sheriff Derek Livingston called McFarlane’s behaviour “completely unacceptable” and placed him on a supervised community payback order for two years.

Thank you for reading this article on our free-to-read website. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a subscription to our print newspaper to help fund our trusted, fact-checked journalism.

https://www.localsubsplus.co.uk/nord/dm/FKH/V