A man whose racist rant caused concerned neighbours to call the police has blamed it on playing Grand Theft Auto.
Terry Whyte yelled “you Polish w******, I’ll cut your throat”, but claimed his expletive-ridden rant was aimed at the popular computer game and not his shocked neighbours.
The 31-year-old also struggled with police officers and shouted homophobic abuse at them during the episode on Monday night at Summerfield Place in Aberdeen.
Depute fiscal Christy Ward told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the neighbours called police to “advise them of a disturbance” after hearing “banging and shouting” from Whyte’s flat. When police arrived, officers approached Whyte to handcuff him and he “began to resist”, lashing out with his arms and legs.
Defence lawyer Kevin Longino said his client had a “complex background” with psychiatric issues and had been mixing medication with alcohol.
He said: “What he’d been doing was playing computer games on an Xbox and a particular game called Grand Theft Auto. What’s happened here is Mr Whyte has been banging and shouting at the computer.
“While he’s aware he has Polish neighbours, he wasn’t initially referring to them. He was shouting at characters on the computer.
“That caused the disturbance and his neighbours quite rightly called the police because of that.”
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He added that, once police arrived, Whyte’s neighbours began to shout abuse at him and he responded by shouting back.
Whyte admitted a racially aggravated charge of acting in a threatening or abusive manner by shouting, swearing, banging on a door and walls, threatening his neighbours and making racist remarks. He further admitted struggling violently with four police officers and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by shouting and swearing and making homophobic comments towards them.
Sheriff Graeme Napier jailed Whyte, of Summerfield Place, Aberdeen, for four months.
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