When police were called out to a garden centre, they found a man holding an axe in one hand and a hammer in the other.

A quick search revealed James Heard was also carrying in his pockets a meat cleaver and a Stanley knife.

Heard, 39, of Orton Road, Carlisle, admitted breaking into the garden centre near Lanark and the illegal possession of the cleaver and knife.

Lanark Sheriff Court was told that police responded to a burglar alarm at the Sandyholm Garden Centre, near Crossford, at 1am on June 25 to find Heard in the rear bin area.

When asked what he was doing there, he replied ‘no comment’, and he made the same reply when asked what he was doing with the axe, hammer, cleaver and knife.

Archie Hill, defending, told the court that Heard – who previously lived in Lanark – was going through a tough patch in his life at that time and was living rough in the Clyde Valley woods.

The axe and other items were being used to cut wood for fires to keep him warm at night.

On the night in question he was merely forgaging for food scraps in the centre bins, he said.

Sheriff Robert Dickson ordered Heard to carry out 300 hours’ unpaid work as part of a year’s community payback order.