Sullom Voe gun threat man under supervision

A FORMER employee who sparked a major security alert when he threatened to take a shotgun to Shetland’s Sullom Voe oil terminal last month has been placed under supervision for 18 months.

Lerwick Sheriff Court heard how 48-year-old Roderick Nicolson had called a security guard at the oil terminal on 6 February saying he was going “clean off” his head.

When asked to repeat himself, he said: “The pain’s nipping my head so much I am coming up with my shotgun, not that I am aiming it at anyone, but you had better take cover.”

The terminal, which employs 300 people, immediately closed for one hour, while work at the neighbouring construction site for Total’s new £500 million gas plant was halted for two hours.

An armed response police unit was dispatched to Nicolson’s house at Da Kupp, in Tresta, on Shetland’s west mainland, where he was negotiated from the property and taken into custody.

Procurator-fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said that Nicolson had been “quite flippant” with the police.

Representing himself in court, Nicolson said he could not explain his actions that day.

“The only time I realised how serious it was, was when they turned up with submachine guns and then I thought: what had I done? That’s when it dawned on me it wasn’t a joke,” he said.

Nicolson told the court he suffered from mental illness and had been formally diagnosed with depression.

“Nothing that I can pin down, but I do have a bit of a screw loose,” he said.

Sheriff Mann said that no-one would criticise him for sending Nicolson to jail, but he was satisfied that prison would not achieve the desired result.

Instead he placed Nicolson on an 18-month community payback order and ordered him to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.