A MAN seen to throw a knife away on CCTV in Dumbarton claimed he had it because he was "paranoid", a court has heard.

Anthony Stewart left a sheriff wondering what could be done to stop his offending after he pleaded guilty to having a blade in public.

Appearing from custody at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on August 29, Stewart admitted that he had the weapon in Bontine Avenue, Dumbarton, on May 10, 2023.

He was on bail at the time, from July 11, 2022 and April 13, 2023.

Fiscal depute Tiffany Chisholm told the court that before 2am on May 10, CCTV operators saw a male on the public footpath near a property in Bontine Avenue.

The cameras caught the male discarding the knife in a garden and police attended.

Officers found Stewart and searched him. A kitchen knife was found in the garden and CCTV operators confirmed the man detained was the one they saw discard the weapon.

"Aye, I had a knife," he told then. "I was paranoid."

Sheriff Maxwell Hendry asked: "What on earth can we do to stop Mr Stewart from committing offences?"

Defence solicitor Brian McGuire said the "cycle has not been broken" with his client going in and out of crime and prison.

He insisted Stewart had a period of sobriety from July 2022 to earlier this year and even "looked well" to his office staff.

A family health scare sent Stewart "off the rails" said his lawyer. The medical news had been kept from him for fears of exactly that.

Mr McGuire said: "He tells me he was handed a knife and stood with it then thought better of it and threw it away."

Sheriff Hendry challenged how that fit with Stewart's own line to cops that, "it was from my pal's house".

Stewart was jailed for 14 months on three separate cases back in May 2023, the court heard. And he had another 10-month sentence imposed to run simultaneously. That includes five months of supervised release.

On the knife charge, Sheriff Hendry deferred sentence to March 2024 to allow Stewart to be released from jail and meet with social workers to determine what's next.