A REPEAT offender who threw a piece of broken glass at Clydebank shop workers and threatened to kill his neighbours will spend almost a year behind bars.

Christopher Williams, who has a string of previous convictions, appeared in court for sentencing last week following a number of incidents in May and June this year.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner and placing two sales assistants at the Cash Generator store in the Clyde Shopping Centre “in a state of fear and alarm” on May 17.

Dumbarton Sheriff Court heard on August 17 that Williams, 44, entered the shop at around 2.45pm under the influence of alcohol and carrying two bottles of part-consumed rosé wine.

He asked to trade in a mobile phone but was told he couldn’t do this as the screen was damaged.

He then began to argue with two staff members, a man and a woman, stating damaged items had been accepted before.

Williams then became aggressive and was asked to leave the store.

The procurator fiscal depute said: “Staff tried to reason with him and asked him to calm down. He threatened them, said they were dead, and shouted and swore at them.

“He dropped a bottle and it smashed during a rant. When he was asked to leave for a final time he picked up a piece of glass from the ground and threw it towards staff.”

Security staff at the shopping centre were contacted and police later arrested Williams nearby, finding him carrying a TV which had been returned to him by the store.

While being removed from a police vehicle at Clydebank police station, Williams became aggressive and threw his weight around, physically and verbally abusing police while being placed in a cell and at one point kicking out at an officer, striking him on the leg.

In a separate incident, on June 13, police were called out to Williams’ address in Cornock Street after a neighbour reported further unacceptable behaviour.

He was found to have caused two of his neighbours fear or alarm by repeatedly attending at the door of their flat, shouting and swearing and knocking on the door.

At one point he was heard shouting: “See you, you’re grassing, come out and face me, see what we do with grasses. If you get me jailed again I’ll kill you.”

He later smashed a window at the property with an unknown implement.

Arguing for a non-custodial sentence, defence solicitor Gail Campbell told Sheriff Frances McCartney that her client, who was jailed for 10 months in 2016 for bursting into an elderly woman’s home in Dumbarton, had become “a caricature of an individual who is in and out of jail” but said “he has not been treated as a lost cause by those within the criminal justice system”.

Ms Campbell told the court: “They have indicated that they would be prepared to work with him. He can be a law abiding citizen.

“In the [background social work] report he immediately comes across as an entirely different gentleman to the circumstances heard.”

Sheriff McCartney jailed Williams for 11 months, backdated to June 14.