A man has admitted a sledgehammer attack that left a former coworker in need of surgery.
Samuel Nixon beat on the man’s front door and when it was opened threatened to kill him before launching a vicious attack with the sledgehammer.
His victim managed to hold off the majority of the blows using construction supplies that were nearby, but one blow caught his thumb leaving it fractured, dislocated and with a severed tendon.
Nixon, 22, today appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court where solicitor Neil Wilson entered a guilty plea to a single charge of assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement.
The court heard that on May 16 this year at 5.50pm the complainer heard his front door being struck and went to answer it.
‘I’m going to kill you’
Fiscal depute David Morton told the court that, when the man opened his front door he saw Nixon standing there with a sledgehammer.
He said Nixon swore at the man saying: “I’m going to […] kill you.”
His victim grabbed a pack of threaded steel bars that were within his reach to defend himself.
Mr Morton said: “The accused swung the weapon two or three times on each occasion the complainer parried the strike. However, while defending himself the sledgehammer caught his thumb causing injury.”
Following the attack, Nixon, of St John’s Road, Fort William, “ran down the street away from the locus.”
Police were called and Nixon was subsequently arrested replying only “Okay, I understand” when cautioned and charged.
Severed tendon required surgery
The court heard that the complainer suffered an “open fracture dislocation” as well as a severed tendon, which required surgery.
Mr Morton told the court: “He still cannot bend his thumb fully and has lost feeling in part of it. The top part of it is still painful.”
He added that the injury required physiotherapy.
Sheriff Sara Matheson granted a motion for the forfeiture of the sledgehammer used in the attack.
Sheriff Matheson called for criminal justice social work report and a restriction of liberty assessment and deferred sentencing for Nixon to the new year.
