A Lochaber crofter who brutally attacked an 83-year-old woman during a row over some curtains has been warned he could face jail.
Colin Campbell viciously attacked the pensioner as she tried to help his own elderly mother change her curtains, leaving the woman with broken bones and missing teeth.
The 50-year-old accused the woman of “interfering” in the house before he dragged her outside onto a patio and punched her to the head and body, Inverness Sheriff Court heard.
The pensioner was left with a broken forearm, which needed a cast, and a fractured nose. She also lost two of her front teeth following the traumatic assault.
‘Don’t be interfering’
Fiscal depute Martina Eastwood said that Campbell, a crofter, shouted at his victim: “Don’t be interfering with anything in this house.”
The woman pleaded with Campbell’s 93-year-old parent to phone the police and when the officers arrived, Campbell confessed what he had done.
Campbell supported his mother and provided maintenance, transport and shopping for her, but took umbrage to her neighbour’s offer of help.
The court heard that Mrs Campbell had wanted to remove the curtains and her neighbour offered to help.
Campbell told her not to do it, though, and when the woman continued with her task, she was attacked, Ms Eastwood said.
Pensioner badly beaten up
The woman suffered a broken ulna, a bone in her forearm, and required a cast on her arm, a cut lip, a nose fracture and lost two teeth.
“She still suffers from restricted mobility,” the fiscal added.
Campbell admitted assaulting the woman by seizing her by the neck, pushing her against a wall, causing her to fall to the ground and punching her on the head and body to her severe injury and impairment.
Sheriff Sara Matheson deferred sentencing of Campbell, of Cuilcheanna, Onich, until February 14, and called for background reports and a restriction of liberty order assessment to be carried out.
She allowed Campbell’s bail to continue but warned him: “You should take nothing from that,” as she implied that a jail sentence was very much a possibility.
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