A troubled teenager, off his face on drink and drugs, will be sentenced on May 12 after he was caught with two blades near a children’s playpark on a Perth housing estate.
One of them, a black-handled kitchen knife, was seen protruding from 19-year-old Luke Macdonald’s jumper pocket.
The second was also recovered from his person, along with a snap bag containing cocaine, after he was arrested in the early hours, Perth Sheriff Court heard.
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Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told him: “It’s often thought that to defer sentence sends out a message to the accused the can has been kicked down the road and, in effect, they are getting off with it.
“I would just make it plain to Mr Macdonald that nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’m keeping a very watchful eye on you because I have an awful funny feeling that you will be heading for a significant period in custody.”
Macdonald, of Rose Cottage, Old Church Road, Wolfhill, admitted having the two knives and the class A drug at the Lade Path, Stanley Crescent, on May 17, 2020.
He also failed to provide two breath specimens for analysis at Dundee Police HQ and breached the terms of a 9.30pm-5am curfew.
The court was told that a neighbour heard a crash about 12.30am, looked out the window and saw the accused “jump into the driver’s seat of a vehicle in an attempt to drive it away”.
He was unsuccessful and was later traced by police and the two knives and cocaine were seized.
Lawyer Pauline Cullerton said the accused could not remember why he had the knives.
“He was completely out of it,” she said.
She added: “He has little recollection of what happened that evening.”
Mrs Cullerton said he had been with friends and had consumed alcohol and diazepam.
“He does remember deciding to drive a car but doesn’t get very far with it.”
In a separate incident a month later, he “borrowed” his dad’s van to give a friend a lift home but was caught driving with more than three times the legal booze limit.
Macdonald also pled guilty to taking away the van without consent from Old Church Road on June 16, 2020, driving with 70 microgrammes of alcohol on his breath and again flouting the terms of his curfew by being out at 1am.
Sheriff Foulis deferred sentence until May and ordered a supplementary background report.
An interim driving ban, imposed earlier, will remain in force.
Macdonald’s bail was continued meantime.
