A MAN who showed a knife to a taxi driver just after he started a journey from Dalmuir has been jailed for 17 months.

Alexander Gordon, who was locked up weeks earlier for breaking a community payback order on other offences, was subject to four bail orders when he had a knife in Dumbarton Road on Hogmanay, including one just days earlier.

Gordon, listed in court papers as a prisoner of Polmont, pleaded guilty at Dumbarton Sheriff Court last week to having the weapon on December 31 just before the arrival of 2017.

At the taxi rank on Dumbarton Road, near Swindon Street, Gordon entered the taxi of a 23-year-old driver at the front of the queue around 10.45pm.

Gordon, previously of Whiteford Avenue, Bellsmyre, Dumbarton, asked to be taken to Bridge Street in Dumbarton but only got as far as Terminus Store nearby where the taxi stopped and Gordon made a comment which “caused the driver concern and then produced a knife of six inches in length”, heard the court.

Depute fiscal Sarah Healing said: “[The driver] asked the accused to leave the taxi, which he initially refused to do, but then did.”

The driver contacted police and said Gordon was last seen walking along Dumbarton Road. He flagged down officers and gave a description of Gordon who was found at 10.55pm and detained for a search.

The knife was found nearby on the ground next to a rubbish bin. Gordon had been given bail most recently on December 22.

Gordon’s defence solicitor said his client was dealing with drug addiction and mental health issues.

Sheriff Maxwell Hendry jailed Gordon for 17 months to start at the end of his current sentence.

Last May, Gordon was praised for turning his life around, but warned his use of alcohol and cannabis could let him slip back, “like snakes and ladders”.