A gun-wielding robber from Fife who abandoned a raid on a bookmaker after an employee called his bluff has been jailed for three years.
Barry Shepherd went into the shop and handed over a demand note warning he would shoot the employee in the face but Peter Morris read it and tore it up.
Former soldier Shepherd, 40, then pulled out a handgun, which Mr Morris thought was an imitation. The betting shop worker challenged Shepherd to shoot him but instead he fled.
He had already carried out a robbery at a nearby filling station nine days earlier when he got away with £400.
At the High Court in Edinburgh judge Lady Scott told Shepherd he would have faced a four-and-a-half-year prison term for the offences but for his guilty pleas.
She ordered that he should be supervised for 10 months at the end of his sentence.
The former chef said “Thank you” after the judge completed sentencing.
Lady Scott told him she accepted the offending was “out of character”, adding: “You have a good record of employment, which also included army service in Bosnia at a young age.”
Defence solicitor advocate John Keenan said it was “rather ham-fisted” offending with no attempt by his client to mask his identity at premises covered by CCTV.
Shepherd had gone into Scotbet on Ferry Road, Edinburgh, on January 27 this year and handed over a note he wrote on a betting slip, stating: “Be quiet. Fill the bag with cash or I will shoot you in the face. Chop chop!!”
Depute advocate Ross Macfarlane said: “Mr Morris challenged Shepherd to shoot him but the accused exited the premises.”
This abortive raid came the day after police released CCTV images to the media of the successful robbery he had carried out at at a BP filling station on Ferry Road on January 18.
Shepherd, of Keir Hardie Street, Methil, previously admitted assaulting employee Dilwerjit Singh at the filling station by pointing an imitation gun at him, threatening violence, demanding money and robbing him of cash.
He also pled guilty to attempting to rob Mr Morris by making threats of violence, demanding money and pointing an imitation gun at him.
Police looking for the robber had later gone to a girlfriend’s flat in Edinburgh.
She said Shepherd had admitted he was responsible for the robberies and on the night of the first raid he had come to her address and sat on a wall crying.
He had said he was going to visit his son in Fife and then he would hand himself in to police.
Shepherd turned up at Levenmouth police station on February 12 saying he knew the police were looking for him.
Mr Keenan said Shepherd had lost his job and added: “It would seem he committed these offences at a particularly low point in his life.”