An Inverness man tried to strangle himself with a police cell blanket after he was arrested by officers in January this year, a court has heard.
PC Steven Fleming was carrying out regular checks on Alexander Mackenzie when he found the 37-year-old in time.
But Inverness Sheriff Court was told yesterday that Mackenzie, of Kenneth Street, spat in the constable’s face after he was refused another blanket to keep him warm.
Mackenzie is on trial before a jury after denying the police assault.
He is also facing a charges of domestically abusing his partner, Carolanne Collie, in a house in Leyton Drive, Inverness, on various occasions between November 12, 2017 and November 17, 2017.
He has pleaded not guilty to endangering her life by compressing her throat and restricting her breathing.
The charge goes on to allege that he threw her on a bed, punched her on her head, and twisted her neck and head to her injury and danger of life.
Mackenzie also denies sending threatening and offensive texts violence to Ms Collie in Leyton Drive on January 22 this year.
She told the court that the pair had an argument after a night out over his belief that she was seeing someone else. Ms Collie said she sustained a black eye after a struggle which included him placing his hands around her neck.
She confirmed that her ex-partner suffered from depression and anxiety but denied that she had attacked him because he said he could not go on a Christmas holiday she had booked for the both of them.
The self-strangulation attempt, PC Fleming told the court, was in the early hours of January 23 when Mackenzie was taken into custody.
The trial continues.
