A 36-year-old who hasn’t been drug-free since he was 12 racially abused a shopkeeper before assaulting a police officer who found him unconscious in the street.
Daniel Bertram walked into the A&C Smart shop on King Street in Aberdeen and immediately started knocking bags of crisps to the floor.
When challenged, he racially abused the shop owner and smashed a pane of glass on his way out.
He was later found unconscious on Park Street and assaulted an officer who tried to make sure he was okay.
Bertram was so out of it he had no recollection whatsoever of the offences and didn’t even know what shop it had happened in.
Fiscal depute Lydia Ross told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the incident happened around 7.20pm on October 30 last year.
She said: “The accused entered the locus and started knocking crisps off a shelf, at which point the complainer asked him to leave.”
‘He has no recollection of the offences at all’
Bertrand refused to leave and was heard to make a racial comment and became “irate and aggressive”.
The shop owner contacted the police and again encouraged Bertram to leave but was met with further racist abuse.
Bertram shouted “p***” and pointed to his forehead in an apparent reference to a Tilak, the red dot worn on the forehead in some cultures.
He did then leave but not before kicking a pane of glass in the door, causing it to shatter.
Around half an hour later, at 7.50pm, a member of the public phoned the police to report finding Bertram unconscious on Park Street.
Officers arrived and managed to rouse Bertram, only for him to become abusive, pushing one officer to the chest and, in a homophobic slur, branding one a “baldy p***”
Bertram, of Ashvale Place, Aberdeen, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, vandalism and assaulting a police officer.
‘I’ll just bide awa’ from shops on King Street’
Defence agent Graham Morrison said: “He hasn’t been off drugs since he was 12. He’s now 36. He has no recollection of the offences at all.”
Sheriff Morag McLaughlin deferred sentence for a drug treatment and testing order suitability assessment to be carried out.
She bailed Bertram with a condition not to enter the shop.
On learning this, Bertram asked: “What shop is it?”
When the sheriff told him, Bertram, seeming to become confused, said: “Where’s that?”
He added: “I’ll just bide awa’ from shops on King Street.”
The case is set to call again for sentencing at the end of February.
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