A sheriff yesterday jailed a serial criminal after exposing his claim to have breast cancer as false.
Last night, Michael Nicol was back behind bars starting a 14-month stretch after unmasking himself at a crime scene.
On Tuesday, the 40-year-old told Sheriff Graeme Napier through his solicitor he was being denied cancer drugs in jail in Peterhead.
The sheriff said: “If I’m sentencing him to custody, I’m sentencing him to death. I don’t want to do that.”
He ordered an investigation and Nicol, who staged a £2700 robbery at a Sainsburys Local in Aberdeen last year, was back in the dock yesterday.
Sheriff Napier crossed swords with Nicol’s solicitor Kevin Longino over the cancer diagnosis and a claim the NHS had withheld drugs.
He told Longino: “I have got a full explanation from the prison – your client had not been diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Sheriff Napier added that Nicol had been advised to stop using opiates, protein shakes and supplements.
Longino insisted Nicol had told him he had “a lump” but the sheriff said: “He does not have breast cancer.
"He knows that. Somebody is lying to me. He is saying he has not been treated, has breast cancer and is going to die – that’s not true.”
Longino said Nicol may have misunderstood what medical staff were telling him.
Instead, he said Nicol suffered from gynecomastia, a condition where male breast tissue swells due to a hormone imbalance.
The robbery involved Nicol and two other men who forced open the shop’s fire exit at 2am.
As Nicol stuffed almost £2700 of cigarettes into pillowcases, he let his hood slip to reveal his identity to security cameras.
Police raided his home and car next day and found a third of the stolen goods and the pillowcases.
Sheriff Napier said he had no other option than to jail Nicol.
