A man previously convicted of assaulting his father over the unsolved disappearance of his mother was caught carrying an axe and a knife at an Inverness supermarket.
Christopher Thomson, 30, was spotted acting suspiciously on CCTV by staff at Asda and police were called.
When Thomson was arrested officers found he was carrying an axe and a lock-knife.
Thomson appeared via videolink at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit two charges of having a bladed or sharply pointed item in a public place and two of threatening or abusive behaviour.
Fiscal depute Shamielah Ghafar said it was around 4.15am on April 24 when staff at the Asda store on Ivanhoe Avenue spotted Thomson acting suspiciously at the customer service desk on CCTV.
She said: “Accused was seen to be standing on top of the worktops shouting incoherently.”
Staff members approached Thomson and asked what he was doing but “they did not receive an answer due to his level of intoxication”.
Thomson then made a threat against the partner of one of the workers, referring to them by their nickname.
Police search found axe and knife
Police were called and Thomson was subsequently arrested and searched, at which point an axe and a lock knife were recovered.
The incident came just weeks after Thomson had acted in a threatening or abusive manner toward his former partner.
On March 28 the woman had passed him as she walked near garages on Mackay Road and had initially failed to recognise him as his face had been “bashed” and was “in a bad way”.
When she did register that it was Thomson, he shouted and swore, calling her a “s**g” and a “grass” and telling her to “watch her back”.
Solicitor Clare Russell, for Thomson, told the court that her client suffered from poor physical and mental health following a bike accident a year and a half ago, which had left him with a brain injury and epilepsy.
She said he had begun to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and was “very much intoxicated” during the incident at Asda.
“Mr Thomson was significantly under the influence of alcohol and other substances, he does not advance that as an excuse but perhaps an explanation as to why his behaviour was so bizarre,” Ms Russell said.
Of the other incident, she said that Thomson and his former partner, who shared one child and each had a child from a previous relationship, had fallen out over his perception of her choices while caring for the children.
Mother’s unsolved disappearance
Referring to a previous conviction for assault, which resulted in a prison sentence in 2015, Ms Russell told Sheriff Linsday Foulis that it related to the unsolved disappearance of Thomson’s mother three decades ago.
Heather Thomson, a 27-year-old hairdresser, went missing from Inverness on January 19 1994, and has not been seen since.
Her case remains live on the website of the charity Missing People where information about her disappearance or sightings can be reported.
Ms Russell said: “Mr Thomson’s mother went missing 30 years ago, when he was only a few months old.
“Mr Thomson is of the belief that his father had something to do with that. It was his father that was the complainer in that matter.”
She asked the sheriff to proceed directly to sentencing her client.
Sheriff Foulis jailed Thomson, whose address was given as a prisoner at HMP Barlinnie, for a total of 10 months. The sentence was backdated to April 25
