Prisonerwent ontherun
A prisoner went on the run from Castle Huntly after being told he was being returned to a jail where he had witnessed a murder.
David Moran was caught the following day but not before he had attacked seven police officers who had cornered him at a Central Scotland shopping complex.
Perth Sheriff Court was told he spat at a detective constable who had restrained him and taken him to the ground - and then tried to head butt him.
Drug addict Moran (33), who has since been transferred to Addiewell Prison in West Lothian, was jailed for 21 months when he appeared on indictment at Perth Sheriff Court this week.
Moran had been jailed for four-and-ahalf years at Glasgow High Court in 2015 for assaulting and robbing a shop worker at a bookies in Livingston.
Depute fiscal Stewart Duncan said Moran was to have been escorted to the dentist at King’s Cross Hospital, Dundee, on the morning of June 8 but the appointment was cancelled. He was seen about 11.30am by another prisoner, who was on leave from Castle Huntly, on a bus going to Dundee.
He asked to borrow a money from that inmate but was refused and was later seen at Dundee Railway Station, asking about trains to Falkirk. Police were alerted but by the time they got there Moran had gone.
Shortly before 3pm the next day DC Greig Muir received a phone call that the accused was at Craigshill Shopping Centre and several officers were despatched there.
DC Muir restrained him from behind and took him to the ground but the prisoner spat at him and then tried to head butt him.
He was handcuffed and a spit hood put over his head.
Moran’s earliest release date from the High Court sentence was to have been August 2019 but Sheriff Wood ordered that the latest jail term be served consecutive to that. Julie Hynd, Ryan Scott and Pauline Smith with pupils