A frail Aberdeen pensioner who had been jailed for breaching a 43-year-old order banning him from the River Don, has been tod he can avoid a future custodial sentence by "behaving".

Appeal judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh decided to quash the three-month sentence and substitute one of 14 days instead – making Stanley Murray (right) a free man. Lord Clarke warned he would find the appeal court "without sympathy" if he did it again.

The 78-year-old great-grandad had been ordered to stay away from the banks of the Don in 1968 after a local landowner, John Paton, caught him poaching. Despite the pensioner's attempts to have it overturned, the order is still in place. The pensioner was jailed for three months at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on September 23, 2011 after admitting breaking the 43-year-old interdict. He spent eight nights in Craiginches jail.

As he left the Court of Session, the Mr Murray said he was "delighted" with the decision. He admitted he had been a "notorious" poacher in his younger days. Mr Murray said: "My poaching days are long past and I want to be able to enjoy the river with my grandkids."

David Morris, director of Ramblers Scotland, added: "There are still too many landowners in Scotland who live in the past, and too many of them live in Aberdeenshire. It seems incredible that someone should finish up in prison just because they want to go for a peaceful walk beside the River Don."

But landowner David Paton, 76, insisted he was standing by the ban his late father brought against Mr Murray. "This was the area where he was a famous poacher. He stole fish, that's why he wasn't allowed to go there again. He was unknown to me until about four or five years ago. Then he suddenly appeared with this placard. I've no idea why he suddenly wanted to start doing it and identify it with me, despite the fact that when he was a poacher it was my father who put him out. It was detrimental for people who wanted to fish officially. It's all been a serious annoyance."