A WANDERING hermit was remanded in custody yesterday for psychiatric reports after a court was told he had attempted suicide while being held by police.

The court heard he had lost the will to survive after being ordered to live in a house.

Robert Sinclair, 51, spent a fortnight on the run after failing to adjust to normal domestic life after 20 years in the wild. He was arrested by police in the village of Avonbridge, Stirlingshire, on Saturday morning.

He appeared from police custody at Stirling Sheriff Court on Tuesday, and tried to hang himself in the cell block toilets, the same court was told yesterday.

Sinclair stole from farms and barns to eat and keep warm while living rough.

Defence agent Gayle Addison said Sinclair had been granted bail in February to see if he could live in a house with friends in Bainsford, Falkirk.

She said the experiment had failed, although Sinclair insisted he had stayed at the house for five nights, not five minutes as police had been told.

She said: ''Because of difficulties he was experiencing settling back into what we'd described as ordinary life, and because of intense media interest in his nomadic lifestyle, the pressure got too much for him.

''He went back on to the road, but he says it wasn't like it was before. He says he had lost the will to survive and he was aimlessly going from place to place.''

The court heard that he was arrested by police in woods near Avonbridge after reports of an intruder. He hid the cord from a pair of jogging bottoms in his pocket.

Miss Addison said: ''He says he intended to take his own life when the opportunity presented itself, and the first chance he got was after his court appearance on Tuesday.

''He went to the toilet, made a noose, and attempted to hang himself.''

She said he was saved only by the quick reactions of police turnkeys. ''He had passed out, but fortunately the court police went to his assistance very quickly, and one officer held him up while the noose was released.''

She said that he had never before had psychiatric problems. ''Until now he has never had any suicidal tendencies, but he is now very low and depressed.''

Sheriff Robert Younger, who had issued a warrant for the arrest of Sinclair on March 3 after he went missing, said the situation was ''so dreadful''.

He told him he was ordering a psychiatric investigation into his mental condition. Sentence was deferred until April 1.

It was in January that Sinclair, nicknamed Davy Crockett be-cause of his survival skills, had been set the three-week challenge to rejoin society.

Sinclair had pleaded guilty to a series of petty crimes across Central Scotland, stealing tins of food, clothes, and alcohol from caravans and rural farmhouses. The court was told that although permanently jobless, Sinclair claimed no State benefits and stole what he needed to eat, drink, dress, and keep warm.

Farmers wife's Elma Gallacher, one of Sinclair's victims, said the loner, who originally comes from Denny, left the local school at 15. Sinclair's record, almost entirely housebreaking and theft, stretches back to this time.

Edinburgh solicitor-advocate John McInnes, who has represented Sinclair throughout most of his recent court appearances, said he was baffled as to what had sparked his client's nomadic life.

He said: ''He told me he has been living in the countryside for 20 years, and for some reason or another he shuns the company of people.

''He was sleeping rough, from time to time taking from isolated buildings items which were either for keeping warm or for consumption. He lived a solitary and strange existence.''

Mr McInnes said Sinclair had no relatives with whom he kept in touch and had very few friends.

He said: ''Certainly if Mr Sinclair had received even the normal benefits over the last 20 years, the cost would far outweigh the value of the stuff he's taken.''

The random pattern of his break-ins, in a broad arc from Balfron in west Stirlingshire to Denny in the south east, crossing into east Dunbartonshire, baffled police from two forces.

Even after he had been identified as the probable culprit, he avoided arrest for months. At one point police tried horseback patrols, without result.

He was finally caught after a sharp-eyed farmer noticed that footprints in a muddy yard had been made by someone wearing trainers, not Wellingtons like all the farm hands. A barn was searched, and hidden among the hay bales, his lair was discovered.

Denny-based Sergeant Donald Woollhead, now retired, said at the time that Sinclair's method had been to strike at isolated farms when his supplies ran low. ''He favours the heavily-wooded areas, and we found reasonably constructed little shelters there.

''He's like a modern-day Davy Crockett, an outdoor type who is very much at home in the bush. He is a loner, an adventurer and a backwoodsman.''