Three police officers assaulted in incident at Inverness takeaway
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Inverness Sheriff Court heard officers had to use pepper spray to restrain a man who lashed out at them.
Scott Mackenzie (22) admitted punching two officers at Max’s Takeway in the city’s Lombard Street on December 8.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard he punched both officers on the head, breaking glasses belonging to one of them and cutting the other.
The pepper spray was deployed at this point and he kicked a third officer on the legs as she was helping place him in a police van.
Mackenzie had previous convictions for police assault.
Sheriff Chris Dickson was told that police had been responding to a report by another customer of Mackenzie’s aggressive behaviour at the diner.
When they arrived Mackenzie was lying on the floor, shouting and swearing.
“The officer approached the accused to try and calm him down at which point he punched him on the face, knocking off his glasses,” depute fiscal Alex Swain said.
When interviewed afterwards he told officers he did not remember anything.
“It appears his drinking, which is excessive on occasion, leads to police having to intervene,” solicitor Graham Mann said.
“Custody will clearly be a consideration of the court.
“He has no excuse and draws the correlation between this trouble and his drinking.”
Mackenzie, of Woodlands Court, Inverness, admitted three charges of police assault and Sheriff Dickson said he would be facing jail if there were any further incidents of the same nature.
He was persuaded, just, on this occasion he said, however, not to impose a custodial sentence.
Instead Mackenzie was placed under social work supervision for a year and ordered to carry out 180 hours unpaid work and pay £350 compensation to his victims.
