The half-brother of actor James McAvoy will face court charged with stealing a car, just months after getting out of jail.
Donald McAvoy, 28, is accused of stealing a five-year-old grey Vauxhall Corsa Sxi Ac from outside a house in Denny, Stirlingshire, on April 17.
His lawyer Graham Walker asked Falkirk Sheriff Court on Wednesday by letter for the case to be continued without plea for three weeks.
The court heard this was to allow him to take instructions from McAvoy, who is behind bars, who was not present in court.
Donald McAvoy (left), the half-brother of actor James McAvoy (right), will face court charged with stealing a car, just months after getting out of jail
Sheriff Alison McKay continued the case without plea until August 22nd.
McAvoy was in fresh legal trouble barely a few months after he was released from jail following a nine-month sentence for abduction.
He last year abducted and beat a father-of-four over a £5,000 unpaid drug debt so badly that he was covered in blood and feared he may die.
McAvoy and Stephen Killen, 30, then locked their victim Zahid Sattar in a car and drove him around for hours, demanding the cash owned by a mutual friend.
While in jail he was part of a gang that badly beat another inmate with a scrubbing brush in a row over a phone at Low Moss jail near Glasgow, according to The Sun.
It was not clear if the beating, which got McAvoy moved to a different prison hall, was while he was in jail for abducting Mr Sattar or after his latest arrest.
The troubled young man was jailed at least another three times dating back to 2007 when he got 30 months for stabbing a man ten times outside a bar.
Seven years later he was sentenced to 20 months in jail after £13,600 of cocaine was found in his flat.
Then in 2016 he was jailed for six months failing to stop for police and driving while disqualified and without insurance.
James McAvoy, 39, who has also starred in films including Filth, Atonement and Trance, is thought to have never met his half-brother, with whom he shares a father.
The actor had a hard childhood on a notorious council estate in Glasgow, and has not spoken to his father, roofer James McAvoy Snr, since his childhood.
James McAvoy has not spoken to his father, roofer James McAvoy Snr (pictured), since his childhood
James McAvoy in the trailer for his upcoming film Glass
McAvoy Snr told the Mail On Sunday in 2008: ‘It has been hard on me not being in his life, but I’m just glad that he seems happy. I hope one day he’ll get in touch.
McAvoy Jnr was brought up by his maternal grandparents James and Mary Johnstone in a council house on the graffiti-decorated Drumchapel estate after his parents divorced.
His father moved in with another woman, Mary McKinnon, and the actor refused to see his father from age eight because he didn’t like her, his father claimed.
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