Police found an improvised weapon when they stopped and searched a known criminal outside a Coatbridge leisure complex.
Sam McTaggart was carrying a lighter with two razor blades attached to it.
He claimed it was for protection after he’d been attacked but a sheriff noted that McTaggart makes a habit of being “tooled up” when he goes out.
The 24-year-old appeared at Airdrie Sheriff Court and admitted carrying an offensive weapon outside Time Capsule in Buchanan Street on July 28. He was on bail at the time.
The court heard police officers saw him walking across the car park shortly before 4pm.
Kevin Morrow, prosecuting, said: “They engaged with him and noticed he appeared very nervous. He was avoiding eye contact and fidgeting constantly.
“There was a smell of cannabis and the officers searched him for drugs.
“They recovered a lighter than had been adapted with two razor blades attached. This was concealed in a cigarette packet in his trousers pocket.”
McTaggart told the officers: “I have mental health and I’ve been done in the past. I need it for my protection.”
His record includes a 34-month sentence on charges that included pulling a knife on his mum, hitting a police officer with a hammer and attacking two men with a broken bottle.
McTaggart then got an extra eight months for throwing a kettle of hot water over a fellow inmate at Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution.
Sheriff Derek Livingston said: “His record seems full of matters involving weapons – knives, scissors, a hammer, a screwdriver.
“On the face of it he appears to go out tooled up. I don’t see how he can avoid going to custody again.”
Defence lawyer Stephen McQuillan said McTaggart has made “significant progress” since being placed on a drug treatment and testing order last year, but admitted that the latest crime was “an unacceptable breach of the rules”.
Sentence was deferred until later this month for reports and McTaggart, who had been on bail, was remanded in custody.
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