The menace of legal highs has again been highlighted in an Angus court after a dad appeared on a charge of assaulting his teenage son.
The 46-year-old, who cannot be named, consumed a cocktail of prescribed medication and one of the controversial new psychoactive substances (NPS) before becoming involved in an early hours incident with the 15-year-old.
Forfar Sheriff Court heard the boy and his older brother were of the view that their father was acting strangely on the night of the incident at their home.
Depute fiscal Jill Drummond said the man had been “rambling on about doctors trying to drug him”.
Just after 2am, the younger boy was lying on the couch in the living room when he saw the accused standing looking at the television before he turned towards him with his fists clenched.
“The boy shouted: ‘What are you doing?’ but the father hit him on the head, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him down towards the floor,” the court heard.
The disturbance woke the other brother, as well as a neighbour, who phoned the police.
The fiscal said the youngsters then fled the house and ran to a nearby home of someone they knew.
Defence solicitor Nick Whelan said the accused suffered a number of personal difficulties but his medication had been causing him concern in recent months and he had been experiencing negative side effects.
“His medication had been changed but he had struggled significantly with the transition.
“Unfortunately, he supplemented the effects of that by using legal highs and this particular evening had used a different type of legal high.
“He is now effectively drug free, apart from his medication, due to a period in prison on remand for this matter.”
Sheriff Pino Di Emidio deferred sentence until April 2 for a community justice social work report to be obtained.