A CONVICTED killer attacked a 50-year-old man with his own walking stick after he complained about dog fouling, a court was told yesterday.
At the High Court in Glasgow 30-year-old Andrew Ralston admitted assaulting William Crichton to his severe injury in Larkhall, on December 18, 2011.
Ralston, of Larkhall, was originally charged with attempted murder, but the Crown accepted his plea to a reduced charge.
Advocate depute Iain McSporran, prosecuting, said: "It would appear there have been issues in the past regarding the accused's dog defecating in the complainer's garden and this appears to have been the catalyst for this incident."
The court heard that Mr Crichton became annoyed when he saw Ralston's dog fouling his garden and said he was tired of it happening.
Ralston shouted at his victim and then took the walking stick from Mr Crichton before attacking him with it. He repeatedly struck Mr Crichton on the head, limbs and body while shouting that he was going to kill him. A witnesses saw Mr Crichton lie prone on the ground and Ralston hit him at least 15 times with the walking stick.
Mr Crichton sustained four cuts to the top of his head, a fracture to his right forearm and bruising to his knees and wrists. He suffered pain and mobility problems for some time after the attack.
Ralston, who was convicted of culpable homicide in 2001 and served four years' detention, claimed that Mr Crichton hit him first with the stick and he disarmed him before attacking him with it.
Judge Lady Scott deferred sentence on Ralston, who is in custody, until later this month at the High Court in Edinburgh.
She said: "What concerns me is that here we have an offence which shows a lack of control."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article