A CLYDEBANK ex-soldier who was jailed for conspiracy to smuggle guns to Glasgow gangsters has evaded being returned to prison.

Martyn Fitzsimmons is on parole until 2020 and could immediately be locked up if he steps out of line.

He pleaded guilty last month to sending threatening letters to a relative and a former friend from his youth. But because the crime was while he was locked up i England and before parole, he remains free.

He has been put on a six-month curfew with an electronic tag between 7pm and 7am and must carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Fitzsimmons was jailed for 12 years in 2008 after being convicted of stealing a large stash of arms and selling them to murdered gangster Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll.

He had served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and then para-regiment between 1996 and 2008, reaching the level of lance corporal. He had tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, including on covert SAS missions. He had a string of convictions, while serving, for violence and disorder while he was on leave and drinking.

But in 2008, along with two others, he stole high-powered guns, ammo, detonators, flares and smoke grenades from British Army barracks in Canterbury, Kent.

While in prison, he made contact with someone he had known in his youth. In a previous hearing at Dumbarton Sheriff Court, the woman was described as a distant cousin, but his defence solicitor last week argued they were not related by blood. Fitzsimmons claimed they had an “intimate” relationship, but it was not “serious”.

The woman sent at least one card, submitted in evidence.

The 36-year-old, who had been living in Bulldale Street, Yoker, pleaded guilty in November to causing the woman fear and alarm with his repeated correspondence between December 13, 2010, and July 14, 2012, to a property in Beeches Terrace, Duntocher.

Between the same dates, he sent letters of a threatening or abusive nature to a female relative to a property in Langfaulds Crescent and elsewhere.

One of Fitzsimmons’ letters said he would “put a bullet in the back of the head” of any man who had been with the woman. He threatened to torture and set fire to any possible love rival.

Solicitor Mark Dunbar said: “The volume of letters is such he accepts she was caused fear and alarm and went to the police and he ought to have known such behaviour would cause her fear and alarm.” He later wrote to the woman’s mother to apologise.

The relative he made contact with stemmed from family members “expressing disgust at him for his conviction”. Mr Dunbar said the correspondence wished “certain bad things happen”. He wrote to the relative asking she visit him in jail to “sort things out”.

Mr Dunbar said: “He was released by the parole board in England in the full knowledge that these allegations were hanging over him and he was placed on fairly stringent conditions. There is no question of him being recalled. If he steps out of line, he will be immediately recalled.”

Sheriff Simon Pender told Fitzsimmons: “These are serious charges and your conduct caused what was no doubt serious fear and alarm and the obvious course would simply be to serve another custodial sentence. But given the unusual circumstances taken by the parole board and the circumstances of the offences committed and the terms of the social work report, with considerable hesitation, I have considered a direct alternative to custody.”

Fitzsimmons will be restricted to a property in Whitehill Court, Dennistoun, in the evenings for the next six months. He must complete 300 hours of unpaid work within 12 months.