AN ALVA man who made a threatening phone call to a council worker wept in court last week as he was given six months to prove he should not go to prison.

Steven MacGregor, who appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court on October 31, had been due to stand trial in September, but struck a deal with prosecutors.

A plea of guilty was accepted for one allegation, that on June 2 at Clackmannanshire Council he behaved in a threatening manner during a phone call during where he raised his voice and uttered abusive remarks.

The original charge was amended to remove an allegation that he made repeated calls and uttered menacing remarks.

A second charge was also dropped by the Crown which claimed he done the same on June 8 as he did on June 2.

The trial had originally been planned for Alloa Sheriff Court but Sheriff James MacDonald ordered it moved to Stirling so that he could deal with it.

The court had heard previously from depute fiscal Gail Russell that MacGregor had phoned to speak to the social work department with regards to a family matter.

He eventually got to speak to a manager and began raising his voice before telling the worker that he would come to see him.

According to the prosecutor MacGregor said: “I’ll meet you face to face. I’ll come to Kilncraigs. You think you’re a big man over the phone. You’re a coward.”

MacGregor, of East Stirling Street, was told during this exchange that he would not be allowed in the council’s main offices if he attended.

The complainer said he felt threatened by the 44-year-old and the police were called in by his department.

Ken Dalling, defending, told the court that his client, who then began to sob in the dock, is in a desperate situation.

He said: “He had a perception that he was being given the run around by the council before the calls took place.”

Mr Dalling then requested that sentencing be postponed for a period to show that MacGregor can be of good behaviour.

It is not the first time MacGregor has been hauled before the courts for making abusive, as well as racist, phone calls.

In September 2012, he made a series of vile remarks to a Sky call centre employee before demanding she “go home and take your disease with you”.

He said he wanted to speak to a British person and claimed he would have the worker deported for “stealing British jobs”.

Then, in September 2015, he threatened call handlers from Aviva, before admitting to being a homophobe and calling an employee a “scummy Irish man”.

When brought up for sentencing in December last year, for the Aviva incident, his lawyer insisted there would be no repeat of his behaviour.

Yet, he then called Clacks Council in June this year and was brought back to court again.

Last week in Stirling, Sheriff MacDonald told MacGregor that his latest offence will not go away quietly for him.

He said: “There are peculiar circumstances. You do have something of a record. We take a very dim view of those who abuse our public servants when they are working.”

Sheriff MacDonald granted the accused six months to be of good behaviour before coming back for sentencing.

However, he warned him: “You will not be admonished when this comes back to court.

“The outcome could be very severe for you.”

The case will call again on May 1, 2018.