A SERIAL firebug who claimed he was dying of cancer then set police on an arts charity and a former friend, a court has heard.

Thomas Coulter, of Davidson Road, Jamestown, Alexandria, has five convictions for wilful fireraising, but not long after being let out of his last prison sentence, he called officers and claimed a man working at Awestruck Academy in Clydebank was drunk while working with children and vulnerable adults.

Police responded but the man was completely sober.

Coulter then made an anonymous call about a former friend, claiming the person had taken a drugs overdose and was trying to kill themself.

That also wasn’t true.

And Coulter never had terminal cancer either.

Dumbarton Sheriff Court heard on June 17 how Coulter had wanted to volunteer at Awestruck but was told he couldn’t.

When he went in on May 15, 2021, and tried to sign the guest book, a worker approached him and asked him to stay away from the centre, at Clyde Shopping Centre.

Shortly after, there was an anonymous call to Dumbarton police from a phone box making the allegation about someone at Awestruck. When police attended, the worker volunteered a breath test and registered zero.

At 6.10pm that evening, another anonymous phone call was made about a former friend of Coulter. Again, police responded and ultimately forced their way into a property. The person supposedly at risk, however, had no intention of overdosing and Coulter was identified as a suspect.

Police tracked down the origin of the anonymous phone call, a phone box near Coulter’s last known address in Dumbarton.

Coulter’s voice was identified on the call. It was also identified on the earlier call about Awestruck. And at 8.20pm that day, he was arrested at his home.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of making calls to police — at Kilbowie Road, Clydebank, and Brucehill Road, Dumbarton, and elsewhere — that he knew were false and temporarily depriving the public of their services.

Defence solicitor Kenny McGowan offered that the “behaviour is bizarre” and at the time “gave great cause for concern”.

Sheriff John Hamilton pointed out Coulter had a “worrying record” of wilful fireraising and had spent a lengthy period in prison. He was released early in November 2020, with time still to serve.

Mr McGowan said at the time, Coulter seemed “to have decided the end is nye”.

Sheriff Hamilton said: “He says he thought he was terminally ill. There’s no vouching for that at all.

“The court is not prepared to accept at the time he thought he had cancer.

“He is saying he had a diagnosis of terminal cancer at the time. I’m not going to accept he ever had a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He cannot hide behind that as an excuse.”

Mr McGowan said his client’s behaviour at the time was “challenging, disturbing, histrionic”.

A month after his phone calls, Coulter was returned to prison on another matter and was released in October last year.

The solicitor said: “He has not offended since his release. He has left Clydebank. He presents in an entirely different fashion.

“He is not terminally ill. He presents rationally and quietly now. And that was not the case around the time of the offences. I’m asking not to return him to custody.”

Sheriff Hamilton put Coulter on a community payback order with 12 months of supervision by social workers and 180 hours of unpaid work in the community.

In February 2020, Coulter, then of McCreery Street, Whitecrook, was jailed for two years for setting fire to wheelie bins near his home.