A man told a court how he collapsed in a street in the early hours after being badly beaten by an assailant wielding an iron bar.
The attacker left Ewan Macdonald lying dazed on the ground and warned him -“Don’t come back here again”.
Mr Macdonald, 27, told a jury at Wick Sheriff Court yesterday that he struggled to his feet but needed to hold onto a wall to support himself and eventually the pain was so great he fell to the ground.
He was initially off work for five months, lost a lot of confidence and doesn’t go out at night unaccompanied. Mr Macdonald added: “I also developed a fear of anyone walking behind me.”
Corey Barnetson, 21, is on trial accused of the assault on July 26. Barnetson, of Kinnaird Street, Wick, denies on indictment having assaulted Mr Macdonald with a pole or similar instrument to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement and permanent impairment.
Mr Macdonald, a joiner, was working in Caithness at the time and had been out socialising in Wick.
He was invited by a woman back to her house in Kennedy Terrace and described what happened after he left in the early hours of the following morning.
Mr Macdonald said that the attack stopped suddenly and he got a glimpse of his assailant as a silhouette, leaving the scene but could not identify him.
Mr Macdonald continued: “I tried to stand up but I was in so much pain I couldn’t at first.
“But, holding onto the garden wall I managed to pull myself up. I had no feeling in my right arm. I made my way down the street thinking that I needed to get to a hospital and managed to phone for an ambulance before I collapsed. I could not say what was happening at the hospital… Everything was a blur.”
Mr Macdonald required two operations for his right arm which involved plates and pins to be inserted and his use of it is restricted.
Mr Macdonald added: “I think I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Another witness, Kiera Macleod told the court she had witnessed the attack.
The trial will resume tomorrow. Barnetson has entered a special defence of alibi, claiming that he was at his father’s house in Oldwick Road at the time of the incident.