Inverness man bit police officer at Raigmore Hospital
AN Inverness man was involved in a three-hour stand-off with over two dozen police who he threatened to stab if they came near him.
Emergency services including police, some of them armed, had been called to Lilac Grove on February 29 this year.
They surrounded a property and were eventually able to arrest Alex Stewart (34), of Kilmuir Court.
He was remanded in custody after the incident. But his lawyer, Shahid Latif told Inverness Sheriff Court that there was a further incident in the police cells afterwards.
He said his client had “substantial injuries” as a result and he was wanting the CCTV footage from the cell area. However, he confirmed his client would be pleading guilty to the charges he faced.
He succeeded in gaining bail for Stewart because, Mr Latif said, he was making “excellent progress” on a current drug treatment and testing order.
Mr Latif conceded that “all options” including a prison sentence, would still be open to the court if a full background report was prepared on his client.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir opposed bail, based on Stewart’s previous record and “because there was a drain on police resources at the time dealing with this”.
Stewart admitted threatening behaviour in a house in Lilac Grove, shouting and swearing, claiming he had a knife and threatening to stab officers, brandishing shards of glass and improvised weapons at police, barricading himself in a room in the property and biting one officer on the arm at Raigmore Hospital.
Sentence was deferred until May 7 for a background report and for Stewart to continue with his drug rehabilitation. But Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald warned Stewart that if he re-offended, he would again be remanded.
“This is your last chance,” she said.