by Craig Borland

A CLYDEBANK man who struck out at two paramedics sent to help him after he was found lying in the street outside his Linnvale home has been jailed.

Charles McGinley was locked up for lunging at the two ambulance workers, seizing hold of them and pushing them in Greenwood Quadrant on April 29.

And his troubles mounted when police later searched a rucksack 47-year-old McGinley had been carrying and found a kitchen knife inside it.

Though his solicitor argued that the blade had been used to cut up vegetables for McGinley’s lunchtime sandwich, the sheriff who presided over the case was unimpressed – and, after looking at McGinley’s dismal criminal record, sent him to prison for five months.

McGinley had pleaded guilty to assaulting, obstructing or hindering the two paramedics and possessing the knife.

Dumbarton Sheriff Court was told on December 1 that the two paramedics had been called to Greenwood Quadrant just after 4pm on April 29 after a report was received that a man was lying unconscious in the street.

Fiscal depute Sarah Healing told the court the paramedics suspected McGinley might be under the influence of opiates, and the medication Narcan was administered to reduce the effects.

“The accused became alert but did not want to go to hospital,” Ms Healing said. “They tried to reason with him but he became aggressive towards them.”

Both paramedics radioed for emergency help, and police soon arrived.

But by the time they did, McGinley had made off. Before they went searching for him police looked inside a rucksack he had left in the ambulance and found the knife.

McGinley was found at his home a short time later, and arrested and taken to the town’s police office in Montrose Street, but due to his aggressive demeanour he was not cautioned and charged.

McGinley’s solicitor, Kenny Clark, said the knife had been inside a Tupperware box within the rucksack.

“He tells me the knife was to cut up vegetables for his sandwich.

“But he took Valium on his way home, and was in no fit state to have the item.”

Mr Clark said McGinley had gone “one step further” than an accused person’s usual expressions of shame, embarrassment or remorse by writing to the Scottish Ambulance Service within a few days of the incident to apologise for his behaviour.

Mr Clark also told the court that while McGinley’s record of previous convictions “does him no credit”, he had committed no other offences against emergency workers, and his only previous crime of violence was in 2013.

He appealed for a community-based sentence.

But Sheriff Simon Pender said in view of his previous convictions he would impose a custodial sentence.