A PRESTONPANS man has appeared in court to admit issuing threats to kill his child’s stepfather.

Shaun Moffat fell out with his ex-partner’s new husband Jordan Main after Mr Main had raised his voice and told the child off.

Moffat spotted Mr Main driving his vehicle on the town’s Robertson Avenue in January and decided to take the man “to task”.

Moffat drove in front of Mr Main and “braked sharply” before the pair stopped and then had cross words.

Mr Main said he would give the child a telling off if it was required but Moffat retaliated by shouting: “You are on thin ice – I will get you killed.”

Moffat, currently living in Dunfermline, then drove off and the matter was reported to police.

While in custody at HMP Edinburgh, Moffat then rang the household where his child lives and, after speaking to the child, the phone was handed over to Mr Main.

Moffat, 31, then demanded Mr Main should go to court and ask for the charges to be dropped; if he failed to do so then “his car or van would be blown up”.

Moffat also told Mr Main that if he was jailed for the offence then his “throat was getting slit”.

Moffat appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last Tuesday where he pleaded guilty to an amended charge of issuing a threat to kill Mr Main on January 15.

He also admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice by making the threatening phone call from HMP Edinburgh on January 21.

Fiscal depute Aidan Higgins said that Mr Main was now married to the accused’s former partner, who is also mother to their child.

The couple broke up “many years ago” but Moffat continues to have regular access and contact with the child.

Mr Higgins said there had been “ill feeling” between the two men and the accused was “angry at his child’s domestic circumstances”.

Solicitor Robert More told the court that Moffat had a record of “some significance” but he had not been in any trouble for the past five years.

Mr More said that his client and Mr Main had lived very close to each other in the town but Moffat had recently moved to Dunfermline to live with his new partner.

The lawyer said that the origin of the confrontations between the two men had come after the child had told Moffat that “Mr Main was in the habit of shouting at the child”.

Mr More added that Moffat continued to have contact with the child and mother, and that relations between him and Mr Main were now “fairly peaceable”.

Sheriff Donald Corke took into account that Moffat had spent three months on remand following his arrest and decided to sentence him to an 80-hour unpaid work order. The sheriff said: “I have to emphasise this is because of the time you spent on remand.”

Moffat pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by driving a vehicle and applying his brakes in close proximity to Jordan Main, behaving aggressively and uttering threats at Robertson Avenue, Prestonpans, on January 15.

He also admitted to uttering threats to Mr Main and attempting to pervert the course of justice at HMP Edinburgh on January 21.