A TEENAGER who is nearing the end of a custodial sentence has been told he'll have six weeks to behave himself when he's let out in the next few days.

Lewis Graham is due to be released from the Polmont young offenders' institution on January 5 – but he'll be back in court in mid-February to face sentence on three separate curfew breaches.

However, 19-year-old Graham was told he's likely to be spared custody if he can stay out of trouble on his release.

Graham had pleaded guilty at previous court hearings to being outside his bail address during curfew hours on February 4 last year, at Gray Street in Alexandria, and on September 11 and 12, 2015, when he should have been within Rosshead House, also in Alexandria.

Graham was brought back to court for sentencing on December 29, when his solicitor, Graham Bryson, said his client's impending release might give him a chance “to show that prison has had a slutary effect”.

At his latest appearance, Graham, who told the court he would be living at an address in Montrose Street in Clydebank on his release, was told by Sheriff Maxwell Hendry: “The issue is whether you are going to continue to act as you have acted, or whether the time you have spent in custody is going to prove useful.

“If you remain out of trouble you can reasonably expect that when you return to court I won't be sending you to prison.

“If you commit further offences you can reasonably expect that I will send you straight back to prison. That's the only way society can be protected from this type of behaviour.

“What happens next depends on you. You will have to take that responsibility.”

Sentence was deferred until February 16; Sheriff Hendry also asked for a supplementary report from social workers to be provided in time for the next hearing.