Ex-uni tutor is facing jail for fake 999 calls
Shamed academic repeatedly phoned emergency services
A disgraced university academic is facing jail for making prank calls to police.
Stewart McDonald, who was a tutor at the University of Glasgow and a manager with the Chivas Regal whisky company, became an alcoholic following his brother and mother’s deaths.
He lost his job, his marriage broke up, he lost contact with his children and had to move into a council flat.
McDonald has been jailed numerous times in recent years for public disorder offences - and is now facing another prison term after pleading guilty to two charges at Paisley Sheriff Court.
On January 24 at a flat in Abercorn Street, Paisley, he wasted police time by repeatedly phoning the emergency 999 number – when there was no emergency.
And he behaved in a threatening or abusive manner in his home in Rannoch Drive, Renfrew, on June 17 by shouting, swearing and threatening violence.
The court heard he was on his verandah and became embroiled in an argument with his neighbours - then demanded a cup of tea.
Sheriff Craig Harris called for background reports to be prepared ahead of sentencing and adjourned the case until next month.
McDonald was previously jailed for 11 months for losing the plot when two housing officers from Renfrewshire Council attended his council flat in Braid Road, Paisley, on February 7 last year.
When they got there he was on the phone to another housing officer and said “speak to them” before passing the phone to one of the officers.
He then shouted: “They want to put me in f****** Springbank Road.
“They’re all monkeys and junkies down there.”
One of the housing officers believed this was “a derogatory term used for ethnic communities” and contacted police.
When officers arrived to take McDonald to the station he began hurling more racist abuse and continued his offensive rant in the police car, calling them “Paki lovers” and saying: “My wife was raped by a Paki. You’re all protecting Pakis - and it’s Pakis, not Pakistanis.”
The racist abuse McDonald hurled in the police car was directed at PC Jamie Mahindru.
In November 2016, McDonald dialled 999 and assaulted one of the officers when police arrived to investigate.
He first got into trouble in 2008 – when he was convicted of a breach of the peace – and stayed out of trouble until 2014.
But he has since racked up 14 convictions, all for drunken rampages – one of which involved the Metropolitan Police and their probe into a Government paedophile probe.
On March 21, 2015, he contacted the London force to tell them he had relevant information but felt suicidal after watching a BBC News broadcast asking for witnesses of the sexual abuse of boys by high-profile figures to come forward.
The Met were investigating claims a VIP paedophile ring murdered three boys and abused countless others in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Met contacted Police Scotland, who sent two officers to his then home in Paisley’s Netherhill Road.
When the officers arrived they could see he had BBC News on his TV and the segment was about the Met’s historical sex abuse investigation.
A bottle of whisky and cans of beer were sitting on a shelf next to McDonald’s couch and he launched into a foul-mouthed rant about paedophiles and a cover- up by police top brass, accused the officers of not doing their jobs and branded one “a f****** Irish b******.”
He also ridiculed PCs Brian Nesbitt and Colin Campbell over their rank, saying: “You’re nothing but f****** patrol officers.
“That’s all you can get with a failed education.”
Other crimes he committed included going to the home his exwife shares with his 26-year-old son in February 2015, demanding to be let in and then calling him “immature” and “a failure”, accusing staff at Paisley’s Royal Alexandra Hospital of raping his wife, branding them “paedo b*******” and threatening to attack them in December 2014 and calling Police Scotland in February 2015 to tell them he was in pain and was going to stab a paedophile and two police officers.
In June 2014 he also caused such a fracas at the RAH that the Accident and Emergency ward had to be cleared. He threatened to punch a receptionist and kill staff at the hospital and, when arrested, told two police officers he was going to kill their children, and was jailed for those drunken rampages in July 2015.