A crowd of around 50 people gathered to watch as a man resisted police efforts to arrest him outside an Inverness city centre fast food restaurant.
Patrick Stewart was traced to McDonald’s in Inverness by officers who wished to arrest him in relation to a separate matter.
But he refused to go quietly, tensing his arms and using his legs to prevent the police van doors from closing.
Stewart, 23, appeared via videolink from custody at Inverness Sheriff Court for sentencing having previously admitted resisting, obstructing or hindering police officers in relation to the incident on October 3 of this year as well as a charge of failing to comply with a previously imposed curfew.
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy-Welsh said that on the date of the incident Stewart had been released from police custody on a separate matter but the decision was taken to rearrest him.
Police arrest man at Inverness McDonald’s
He was traced at around 5.20pm at McDonalds on Inverness High Street.
He had a vape in his hand, which he refused to release as officers tried to detain him.
He then “began to tense his arms and make a concerted effort to move away from officers,” Ms Duffy-Welsh said.
She added: “He began to push with his legs, resisting arrest.”
The court heard that officers at the scene had to apply leg restraints in order to get Stewart into the back of a waiting police van, but once inside he used his legs to prevent the van doors from closing as “about 50 members of the public watched”.
“It took the police various resources to deal with the incident,” the fiscal depute told Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood.
Solicitor Brent Lockie, for Stewart, said his client was a young man who had had a “difficult upbringing”.
Offending ‘underpinned by substance misuse’
He said: “His offending is substantially underpinned by substance misuse.
“He doesn’t condone his behaviour on the day, he just wants to apologise for this, there were certain frustrations in his personal life at the time. In the sober light of day he appreciates this is unacceptable.”
Mr Lockie asked Sheriff Fleetwood to consider a further deferring sentence to allow for the consideration of a drug treatment and testing order.
But the sheriff told Stewart, of Stadium Road, Inverness: “I see no alternative to a custodial sentence,” and jailed him for five months, backdated to October 4.
