By GERRY BRAIDEN

FORMER Partick footballer Derek Lyle allegedly threatened to 'slit the throat' of a police officer it emerged during attempts to thwart his bid to become a director of a single-cab taxi firm.

Police Scotland objected to the Queen of the South veteran taking on the role at his mother's company, citing previous convictions and a forthcoming court case involving allegations of assaulting or impeding the police.

The allegations follow an incident at a pub run by the player where his father was hospitalised following an attack which, it has been reported, was carried out by members of a notorious crime clan.

Mr Lyle is alleged to have told one officer who attempted to ascertain his identity "you're getting it ya turkey" and called him "ya wee scone".

He is also alleged to have called the same officer a "wee bovril" and is accused of adding: "You're a wee jobsworth. If I ever find a link to you they are getting it ano. I'm telling you right now when I get out it will be carnage."

A report was sent to the procurator fiscal on April 5 but no trial date has as yet been set.

But councillors in Glasgow rejected the police intervention and gave the 35-year-old striker the go ahead to join the taxi firm.

During Thursday's meeting of the city council's licensing committee, Police Scotland gave details of a incident in Dumfries where Mr Lyle threatened officers after being removed from a nightclub in the town.

The committee heard how the player was forcibly removed from the venue and made threats to stewards. The complaint also detailed how when taken to a police station in the town Mr Lyle made more threats and while being searched told officers he would "knock their heads off".

The committee was also given details of another allegation from April 2016 where Mr Lyle was accused of threatening behaviour towards police officers after they prevented him entering the Campsie Bar in Auchinairn, near Glasgow.

The police complaint also detailed allegations Mr Lyle continued to issue threats of violence, including knife attacks, when taken to London Road Police Office in the city's east end.

At the council hearing Mr Lyle said: "The Dumfries incident, I'd been thrown out by the bouncers. They were very heavy handed. I've admitted to that."

He added that in last month's incident outside the pub he had been drinking following a funeral before being woken in his bed and told of the attack on his father.

Quizzed on whether he had the correct temperament to run a business, Mr Lyle said the basis of the police complaint were both one-off incidents.

Asked by committee member Pauline McKeever to clarify whether the firm he was seeking to become a director of had just one taxi and what his business intentions were Mr Lyle said: "Nothing really. Just to be a director. Hopefully expand the company in the future."

Committee chairman Frank Docherty said that he could "understand the emotion involved if that was my father" before adding that all the allegations were verbal and not physical and that "this was a young man who had been drunk and whose dad had been physically attacked".

He also explained to fellow committee members that it was common for single cabs to be multiply owned and licensed by members of the same family.

Vice chair and fellow Labour member Gilbert Davidson asked Mr Lyle whether the move was part of a future career plan before informing the player that he himself had once been a professional footballer.

Mr Lyle is a director of Derek Lyle Ltd and is described on official documents as a publican.

He signed for Queen of the South in 2012 and has scored 45 goals in 125 games for the Dumfries club. He has also had stints at Partick Thistle, Dundee and Hamilton Academical.