A Port man has been cleared of issuing a death threat after a trial heard that the alleged victim is charged with stalking his partner

Andrew McLean, 34, was accused of pulling up beside Lawrence Lyons, 51, in a car and stating: "I'll kill you after the court case."

But Mr McLean said that he'd merely told Mr Lyons that he would see him in court after the other man made an 'evil' jibe at him.

Greenock Sheriff Court heard that Mr Lyons had shouted over that he'd had sex with Mr McLean's partner.

Mr Lyons was sitting outside a close at his flat on Robert Street drinking cider when a mid-morning confrontation occurred on April 29.

He told the court: "Mr McLean pulled up in a car and said he was going to kill me after the court case.

"He sounded angry. I wasn't really bothered. I thought, I'm up against his girlfriend, so that was that."

Mr Lyons is facing a trial next week.

Defence lawyer Aidan Gallagher put it to him: "You are being prosecuted on what is commonly known as a stalking charge."

Mr Lyons replied: "Allegedly, yes."

Mr Gallagher asked him if it were not the case that he'd initiated a confrontation by shouting that he'd been intimate with the woman.

Mr Lyons replied abruptly: "Nope."

He told the court that he'd been in a 'relationship' with the female, at which point she became upset in the public gallery and rushed outside.

Lyons' friend of 20 years, William Smith, 52, said that Mr McLean had 'hung out' the driver's side window and shouted the death threat.

Mr McLean, of Wilson Street, told the court that he stopped the car because Lyons had made a 'hurtful, evil remark'.

He said: "I stopped and said, 'I'll see you in court, and I drove off, and that's all."

Asked by fiscal depute Joanne Gilmour why he stopped at all, Mr McLean said: "Anyone would be upset."

Sheriff Andrew McIntyre said that he had 'doubts' concerning some of the evidence in the case.

The sheriff said: "The appropriate verdict here is not guilty."