Last chance for man who keeps avoiding jail 24/6/14
A new sheriff took a sympathetic view on a South Uist man who repeatedly fails to
do his community service work.
John Anthony Macneil was originally sentenced to unpaid work under a community payback
order imposed for three separate assaults in 2012 as well as drink driving while
over three times the alcohol limit last year.
The 21-year-old whose address was given as Clover, Ardnamonie, South Uist, has been
previously warned he will go to jail unless he changes his priorities.
The same thing occurred when he appeared at Lochmaddy Sheriff Court on Tuesday.
Solicitor Angus Macdonald asked Sheriff Noel McPartlin to give him yet another final
chance even though the last sheriff “gave him four weeks” some two months ago.
The lawyer accepted Macneil showed a “distinct lack of co-operation” in undertaking
the court-imposed unpaid work as a penalty for his offences.
He said Macneil has a “very severe alcohol addiction and got himself into the company
of others over the last month who have also got their own difficulties with alcohol.”
Jail was an option which Macneil wanted to avoid, he said.
Sheriff McPartlin said: “I am not going to pull the trigger today.
“You have got four weeks to sort yourself out or you face prison,” he told Macneil.