A CHESTER man who caused a disturbance at the city's Iceland store, leaving customers frightened, has received a fine.

William Forsyth, 49, of Watergate Street, pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening behaviour when he appeared at Chester Magistrates Court on Monday, October 29.

Prosecuting, Rob Youds said the victim in this case was William Ellis, store supervisor at Iceland, who was on duty when he saw Forsyth trying to purchase alcohol at the till on October 14.

The court heard Forsyth was barred from the store but Joe Bleasdale, defending Forsyth, said it was not Forsyth but the defendant's friend he was with who was actually barred.

Mr Youds told the court Forsyth was asked to leave the store and he became abusive, shouting: "I will take your f****** head off."

Customers were shocked by the incident, police were called and the defendant was arrested.

Forsyth had 51 previous convictions for 85 previous offences, most of them for theft and dishonesty. His most recent conviction had been for begging in January and previous to that he had received a 12-week prison sentence for burglary.

Defending, Mr Bleasdale added Forsyth had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and it had been an unusual scenario.

He accepted he was wrong to address staff in the way he did.

He was the subject of a post-sentence supervision order and was complying with it.

A report from probation said the supervision order ran until November 2 and Forsyth was technically in breach of it, but magistrates made the decision not to penalise him for it.

Forsyth was a regular user of alcohol and had been working with probation on alcohol-related issues.

Chair of magistrates Moira Chapman told Forsyth: "Because you are so close to the end of the post-sentence supervision order, we will not take any action on that."

Forsyth was fined £80 and must pay a £30 victim surcharge.

As Forsyth was currently paying off existing fines of £2,905 at the rate of £5 a week, no court costs were added to the total.