A self-employed joiner made threats against a cat during a drunken row with his girlfriend in Dornoch.
Bryan Urquhart, 42, had been drinking when he argued with his partner of four years on a night out and then returned home alone.
When the pair were later reunited at their shared home, he became abusive towards her.
Urquhart told the woman: “Get out of my house”. Then he made threats against the cat, Tain Sheriff Court was told.
He appeared in the dock for sentencing after previously admitting to a charge of engaging in a course of behaviour that was abusive to his partner.
Woman fled Dornoch property feeling ‘scared and intimidated’
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy Welsh told the court that Urquhart and his then-partner began drinking with friends at The Eagle Hotel in Dornoch, around 2pm on December 29 last year.
“Both consumed a large quantity of alcohol,” she said.
The group then moved on to the Coach House Bar and Restaurant in Dornoch.
Urquhart took exception to his partner’s friend joining their group, knocked over a table of drinks and was asked to leave the bar.
In the early hours of the next morning, when the couple was back at their home, Urquhart “began shouting and swearing”.
He told the woman: “Get out of my house, you are not allowed in my f****** house” before “making threats against the cat”.
The woman went to stay with her mother and took the pet with her.
But she received further threatening calls and texts from Urquhart.
When she returned home later that day to collect her belongings, Urquhart became aggressive.
She fled the property feeling “scared and intimidated” and then Urquhart locked her out.
The woman next heard from Urquhart shortly after the bells on Hogmanay, when he sent a text demanding that she return the cat.
“If you don’t, you will see what happens to you,” he warned her, adding that he was “only two minutes away”.
After she managed to collect the rest of her belongings with the help of Urqhuart’s family members, the woman reported her former partner’s behaviour to the police and he was arrested.
Bryan Urquhart was ‘drowning his sorrows’
Solicitor Rory Gowans, defending Urquhart, told the court that his client: “Very much regrets his conduct on the dates in question”.
He said that after bickering with his partner, Urquhart had been drinking whisky as a way of “drowning his sorrows to blot all that out”.
Sheriff Gary Aitken told the offender, of Stafford Road in Dornoch: “This was an appalling piece of behaviour and being drunk is not an excuse”.
He fined Urquhart £1,675 and said: “You may have a bit less money to go out and get drunk”.
Sheriff Aitken also imposed a non-harassment order preventing Urquhart from contacting the woman for 12 months.
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