Man wearing SS flag with swastika chased people down street with chainsaw

A man who wore an SS flag with a swastika on it while chasing people with a running chainsaw in a street has been jailed for three years.

Cameron Hotchkiss, 22, also posted videos of himself mixing chemicals and threatening to make a napalm flamethrower as part of a “feud” with another family.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told the chainsaw incident in June last year occurred at around 11.20pm.

Prosecutor Rachel Wallace said it followed an earlier incident when four men had arrived at Hotchkiss’ home and there was an argument about a drug debt involving a friend.

Hotchkiss, together with his father and the friend, then went to meet the men in Stirling’s Cornton area to pay the money.

Police then received “multiple” 999 calls after he was seen brandishing the chainsaw in Westwood Crescent, Cornton.

Ms Wallace said: “The chainsaw was switched on and he was waving it around and appeared to be chasing someone.

“He was also wearing an SS flag which had SS emblems and a swastika on it.”

Aftewards he got into a black Toyota Avensis, which was later stopped by police.

He was found in the front passenger seat, with the chainsaw and the Nazi flag in the front passenger footwell.

Hotchkiss, of Whins of Milton, Stirling, appeared for sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty in July to charges of common law and statutory breach of the peace.

Solicitor-advocate Frank Moore, defending, said Hotchkiss and his father had been under attack and Hotchkiss had got the chainsaw from the boot of his father’s car in an attempt to stop the assault.

Mr Moore said: “His father had been struck with a weapon, and Mr Hotchkiss was struck by a motor vehicle.

“The chainsaw is something he and his father use when they go camping.”

Hotchkiss also admitted that a month later, on July 24 and 26, he repeatedly posted videos on a Snapchat group threatening violence, stating he was making chemical weapons and threatening to make a napalm flamethrower, all while mixing chemicals and setting the chemicals and a liquid alight, and went on to send repeated Snapchat messages making offensive remarks and threatening violence.

Ms Wallace, the depute fiscal, said the background to this was “an ongoing feud between the accused’s family and another family”.

“Petrifying” videos posted by Hotchkiss showed him talking about making petrol bombs and flamethrowers.

One video, captioned “chemical weapons experiment” showed liquid in a plastic bottle, Pyrex dishes, and Hotchkiss mixing petrol and polystyrene in his garden in a container labelled “Napalm”.

Another showed a fire extinguisher near the container, captioned, “Just got to fill this b**** up with pressure and we’ve got a WW2 napalm flamethrower”.

Among further videos he posted was one in which another male was seen holding what Ms Wallace said “could only be described as a flamethrower” and directing flames towards a grass area, which immediately caught fire.

The court heard that a criminal justice social work report on Hotchkiss warned he was at high risk of further offending with “a high potential for harm”.

Imposing the 36-month jail term, Sheriff Derek Hamilton also placed him under social work supervision for 12 months on his release “to protect the public from serious harm”.

He said: “Clearly these are serious offences. Running up the street with a chainsaw operating, as would be evident to anyone, is completely unacceptable.”