A FORMER Clydebank man who made chilling threats to staff at a shop in Dalmuir has been told to “get a grip” by a sheriff.

Stephen White told workers at the Clydebank Co-op in Dunn Street that he knew “four or five people who would gladly kill you”.

The 41-year-old appeared at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on Friday after pleading guilty to a charge of threatening or abusive behaviour at the store on August 9 last year.

The court heard that White went into the shop in the middle of the day despite having previously been barred.

Fiscal depute Sarah Healing said: “The accused appeared to be under the influence. He approached the butcher’s counter, shouting and swearing, and was repeatedly warned about his conduct, reminded that he was barred, and was asked to leave.

“But he continued being verbally abusive. He told staff ‘you’re getting it after your shift’, ‘I know people’, and ‘I know four or five people who would gladly kill you’, while making a slitting gesture across his throat.

“The accused turned to a second member of staff and said ‘I’ll plug you as well’, and then turned to a third member of staff, who had asked the accused not to speak to his colleagues in that manner, and said ‘you’re one of them’, ‘you’re a dead man’, and ‘I’m going to get you killed’.”

White, of Kyle Terrace, Dumbarton, also admitted a charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by going to a house in Kyle Terrace in Dumbarton, shouting, swearing, and uttering threats and racial remarks to a man within the property, on Boxing Day last year.

He was arrested and appeared in court the following day, when he was released on bail with a condition barring him from going to Kyle Terrace – a condition he then breached on April 27.

Judith Reid, defending, told the court: “He thought the bail conditions had come to an end, but he accepts, given his record, that he should know how bail conditions work.”

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Sheriff John Hamilton, referring to the threats White had made to the Co-op staff, asked: “Does he ‘know people’?”

Ms Reid said her client did not, and that the threats had been “pathetic”, adding that White was already on a community payback order for a separate offence.

Sheriff Hamilton told White: “You have to get a grip.

“I suspect you don’t want to behave like this either, but you’re so incompetent that you can’t help yourself.”

Sentence was deferred until August 2.