Gardener's growing anger led to threats

Pressure at work led Michael Paris (41) to storm around his mother’s house where he had been living and frighten the 66-year-old with his angry behaviour. It also saw him post a series of threatening messages on Facebook.

Paris appeared at Falkirk Sheriff Court last Thursday having previously admitted behaving in a threatening manner at 100 Gairloch Crescent, Redding on February 1 and posting threats of violence against his boss on social media on February 8.

Gavin Whyte, procurator fiscal depute, said: “His mother heard him ranting and raving about his work. He was shouting and screaming.”

Paris’s mother attempted to leave various rooms in the house, but he would block her path and continue his drunken rant. She eventually had to go to a next door neighbour’s house to get away from him.

After that incident Paris later turned his attention to his boss at Falkirk Council.

Mr Whyte said: “The accused was on his final warning at work when he began posting messages on his Facebook page.”

Most of the messages were derogatory comments about his boss, including threats to “kick his ass”, and statements like “I know where you stay”, “I will do time for you” and “I’m out of control” and basically challenged the man to meet him for a fight.

Mr Whyte said: “The complainer was alarmed by these messages and thought the accused would carry out these threats so he called the police.”

Defence solicitor Lynne Swan said: “There were investigations at his work into the number of absences he had. He was suffering from stress and his mental health has not been good at times.”

She said the messages were posted on his Facebook page and were only brought to the attention of his boss when a former colleague noticed them.

Sheriff Derek Livingston said: “He blames everyone else other than himself for his problems.”

Paris, who no longer works for the council, was placed on a supervised community payback order for two years and told to complete 135 hours unpaid work within six months.