City knife man sent to prison for 16 months

A man caught carrying a knife in a Stirling street was this week jailed for a year and four months.

Thomas Marshall had the blade in the city’s Douglas Street on Sunday January 29 this year while subject to a supervised release order.

The 26-year-old had appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court from Low Moss Prison via videolink on Wednesday and admitted a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.

The fiscal depute told the court that police witnesses had been directed to attend immediately at the locus at 11.30pm on January 29.

Marshall was traced in Douglas Street and the knife was found within the waistband of his trousers. He was told he was under arrest.

His agent told Sheriff Keith O’mahony that his client was a young man who had a very troubled upbringing. On the night of the knife offence Marshall had been intoxicated.

Marshall, he added, had been subject to a supervised release order at the time.

The accused, originally from Kirkintilloch, had relocated to Stirling to live with a relative in a bid to make a fresh start after being released from a custodial sentence.

The lawyer said Marshall’s future was in his own hands. If he did not tackle his violence he risked coming back to court with“depressing regularity”.

Sheriff Keith O’mahony noted that Marshall’s previous convictions included an assault to injury and robbery at High Court level which had been aggravated by the use of a machete - as well as other crimes of violence.

There was no alternative to a custodial sentence, he said. He sentenced Marshall to 16 months’imprisonment backdated to January 30.