A father who jumped from a bridge into the River Tay on the anniversary of his son’s death has been warned he could be jailed for endangering the emergency workers who saved him.
Thomas McLean (52) was swept 400 yards downstream after leaping from Perth’s railway bridge while police were trying to talk him down.
He clung to a branch and was pulled to safety after a rescue operation estimated to have cost “tens of thousands of pounds”.
Sheriff Michael Fletcher said the rescuers “were put in serious danger”, adding: “Courts have to do what they can to discourage people from climbing on bridges and doing this.
“It is not an uncommon thing in Perth, unfortunately. It seems to me that a custodial sentence is the only way to deal with it. It must be discouraged.
“I treat this as a very serious matter indeed. The Crown haven’t been able to tell me what the cost of the operation was, but I suspect it was tens of thousands of pounds…”
McLean, of Balgavies Avenue, Dundee, had admitted disorderly conduct and breaching the peace by his river leap on November 18.
Sheriff Fletcher was told that McLean was depressed and he deferred sentence on him for six months to be of good behaviour.