A man sent a north library into lockdown after brandishing a replica gun and stole a yacht before running it aground.
Michael Kucera took the 30ft sailing vessel ‘Schönbrunn’ from moorings in Fort William and drank a bottle of rum on board.
After he was arrested and treated in a psychiatric hospital, he returned to the Lochaber town and walked into the local library wearing a rucksack, holding a replica gun and terrified staff.
Yesterday, Kucera admitted theft by shipbreaking; culpable and reckless conduct, possessing offensive weapons and behaving in a threatening manner.
Fiscal depute Michelle Molley told Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood that the alarm was raised on March 29 when a witness saw a distress flare being set off from the vessel.
Coastguard and the Oban lifeboat crew raced to the scene but Kucera had already started the engine and sailed off down Loch Linnhe.
The court heard he was naked apart from a waterproof jacket. He later ran the boat aground near Lochaber Yacht Club and tried to push it back into deeper water himself.
Kucera then refused to be rescued by coastguard from the icy waters and made his own way ashore where he was arrested by police and went to New Craigs Hospital in Inverness for treatment. The day he was released, on May 25, he returned to Fort William and walked down the High Street brandishing what appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol and then entered the local library where terrified staff locked themselves in.
He had placed the gun, which turned out to be a replica BB gun, on the counter and when asked if it was real, he told an employee: “What do you think?”
Kucera remained in the building for around half an hour before armed police surrounded the library.
When Kucera, 26, emerged from the front door, he was bundled to the ground and his rucksack cut from his back and taken away a safe distance in case it contained explosives.
Ms Molley added: “A firearms officer said: ‘It was realistically styled, and to someone inexperienced in firearms or observing it from a distance it could have appeared a genuine and viable firearm’.
“The firearms officer further stated ‘had it been pointed at me from a distance I may have been forced to take decisive action’.
Police also found a knife and lighter fuel in the backpack. Kucera later claimed to police he knew how to make “napalm” from the liquid.
Kucera, who was living rough in the area, had sentence deferred until November 9 for a background report and was again remanded.
His solicitor advocate Shahid Latif said: “Given what occurred elsewhere in the UK a few days earlier, he is acutely embarrassed. He has come to realise the enormity of how his behaviour was perceived that day and he apologises.”
