News / Ex addict jailed for wielding knife
A FORMER drug addict from Shetland was jailed for 10 months when he appeared from custody at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday having admitted assault by wielding a knife and threatening people while drunk.
Adam Nelson, described as a prisoner in Aberdeen, was captured on CCTV as he “danced around” with a knife after being ejected from a flat on Lerwick’s Commercial Road on 29 December last year.
The incident came to a sudden close when a passer by knocked out the 23 year old with a single punch to the face after he was threatened too.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said a drunken Nelson had turned up at the flat where two other men had been drinking, and an argument over an ex girlfriend “spiralled out of control”.
The two men kicked Nelson out, but as he left he grabbed a knife and once out on the street he started to dance around and make threats.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said that his client had picked up the knife thinking he would need it to defend himself.
He added that Nelson had been making good progress after building up a lengthy criminal record that has included several jail sentences mostly connected to his drug addiction.
He had now given up heroin, he said, and had been working towards becoming a forklift driver when he went off the rails after the death last year of his grandmother, to whom he was very close.
“Everyone was impressed with the way Mr Nelson was getting on…but he took the news of her death badly and accepts that he went off the rails and started to drink,” he said.
Jailing Nelson for 10 months, Sheriff Philip Mann said it was a great shame that Nelson had brought this on himself through overindulgence in drink, adding that anyone who offended with a knife had to expect to go to jail
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