BUYING an axe at Aldi as an impulse buy led to a Lochgelly fork lift driver making a Court appearance this week.

Paddy Queen tailgated a Transit van before overtaking it and slamming on the brakes and then waved his new axe at the occupants of the vehicle who had been returning from a football match.

Sentencing him, Sheriff Alastair Brown told Queen: "This is not the wild west, it is Cardenden."

Appearing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court on Wednesday, Queen, 26, of Motion Street, had earlier admitted that on October 27 last year on Main Street, Cardenden, he drove without due care and attention for other road users, tailgated a van, repeatedly attempted to overtake it when it was unsafe to do so, drove in front of it, braked suddenly and caused it to take evasive action.

He also behaved in a threatening or abusive manner by brandishing an axe.

Depute Fiscal, Azrah Yousaf, said Queen appeared to be tailgating the van in his Ford Focus and attempted to overtake it on several occasions.

When he did eventually manage the manoeuvre, he immediately slammed on his brakes, causing the van to brake and take evasive action.

"He then rolled down his window and there was an axe he was holding which he seemed to be shaking at the driver," she said. "The driver of the van took the registration number and contacted the police."

Solicitor, Jaclyn Robertson, said her client accepted he was annoyed and that would have come across in the manner of his driving.

"His explanation for having the axe was he had purchased it on that day," she said.

"It was an impulse buy – it was a middle aisle product in Aldi. The reason for purchasing it was to clear branches at the bottom of his garden.

"There is a degree of remorse in that he recognised what he did was aggressive and stupid and inconsiderate to other road users. He recognises the brandishing of the axe would have caused alarm and fear for anyone who would have witnessed that."

Sheriff Alastair Brown told Queen that he had been "very fortunate".

He said: "What the prosecution describes was, in my opinion, plainly dangerous driving and if it had been proved at trial before me that you had been tailgaiting someone like that and then made attempts to overtake then slammed the brakes on, I think you would have been convicted which would have meant you would have been disqualified.

"The prosecution has accepted this was careless driving. You are fortunate because that takes us into different territory. Let it be clearly understood, that whatever the reason, tailgaiting another driver is very serious bad driving which I will deal with seriously. You then compounded it by waving an axe out the window."

Sheriff Brown ordered Queen to do a total of 261 hours of unpaid work within nine months and issued him with nine penalty points. A Crown motion for the forfeiture of the axe was granted.