A 'PAEDOPHILE hunter' threatened to run fellow vigilantes over in a car after falling out with them, Greenock Sheriff Court has heard.

Craig Fitzpatrick, 29, made a menacing phone call last Christmas to two members of a group he was a member of in Port Glasgow.

In a voice message he shouted: "I'm going to buy a car and run you over, I'm going to do you."

His lawyer told a sentencing hearing that Fitzpatrick had 'overstepped the line' in breaching the Communications Act in this way.

A procurator fiscal depute said: "On December 27, 2022 the two witnesses were at home when one of them received a phone call from a withheld number.

"The witness put the phone on loudspeaker and both heard the accused on the phone.

"He shouted: 'I'm going to buy a car and run you over, I'm going to do you.'

"It was passed to police and the accused was traced and charged and made no reply."

Fitzpatrick appeared from custody for yesterday's hearing having been given a 12-month jail term for a separate matter at Hamilton Sheriff Court earlier this month.

Defence solicitor Liam Robertson said the complainers are in a relationship and were friends with the accused while they were all 'part of a paedophile-hunting group'.

Mr Robertson said: "There was a parting of the ways as to how they should proceed.

"This phone call caused significant distress although it took until the middle of January for the complainers to report it.

"The accused has had to move about two dozen times by people turning up at his door accusing him of offences which are not entirely true.

"He has moved to Aberdeen, Dumfries; the length and breadth of Scotland.

"[In this case] he overstepped the line."

Sheriff Neil Kinnear imposed a four-month custodial sentence to run concurrently alongside Fitzpatrick's present prison term.