A north-east teenager who was nearly killed in a savage knife attack has walked free from court after being acquitted of a brutal street assault.
Gino Del Testa lost four pints of blood when he was stabbed in the neck by a colleague after a Christmas party.
His workmate Sebastian Biesek was struck by a passing car as he tried to go get help for the 19-year-old.
The 31-year-old Polish-born father-of-one died at the scene of the incident outside the Gray & Adams factory in Fraserburgh’s South Road.
Mr Del Testa’s parents Wendy and Stephen kept a bedside vigil as he was treated in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s intensive care unit.
Doctors told them he was lucky to be alive, but he made a remarkable recovery.
He had been on trial over the past two days accused of disfiguring a 22-year-old painter and decorator in a separate, unrelated incident.
But a jury at Peterhead Sheriff Court took less than half an hour to return a unanimous not proven verdict yesterday.
Earlier this month, the man who stabbed Mr Del Testa in the neck appeared at the same court and admitted the vicious attack.
Stephen Davies, who worked with Mr Del Testa at Gray & Adams, will be sentenced in early December.
During Mr Del Testa’s trial, he was accused of repeatedly punching 22-year-old James Cowie in the face, knocking him to the ground and leaving him with a four-inch wound on his scalp requiring staples.
The attack was alleged to have taken place near Snax takeaway in Fraserburgh in the early hours of September 1 last year.
On Monday, Mr Cowie told the court that Mr Del Testa and his friends had mocked him in the food shop and pulled down his trousers.
Mr Cowie said: “I never said anything. I just pulled my trousers up and started walking home.
“Gino came running down towards me. He came right into my face and called me a woman beater. Next thing I was down on the ground with blood coming out of me, head burst open, nose burst open.”
Mr Cowie’s evidence appeared to tally with the second witness called in court by fiscal depute Anne MacDonald – Snax doorman Michael Best.
However, when it emerged during cross-examination that Mr Cowie drank “60 or 70 vodka cokes” in the hours before the alleged incident, and that he and Mr Best had compared their versions of events moments before the trial, the prosecution case was close to collapse.
Mr Del Testa’s agent, solicitor Sam Milligan, urged Sheriff Philip Mann to clear the teenager on grounds he had no case to answer.
Mr Milligan did not offer any evidence on his client’s behalf, but in his closing speech urged members of the jury to ignore what he dubbed “dot-to-dot” evidence.
He said: “Can you legitimately say these witnesses have been credible and reliable?
“Rather than dovetailing perfectly they fit where they touch and that’s not very much. There has been a session through in the witness room of dot-to-dot justice.
“Lines have been drawn to complete the picture for us.”
Mr Del Testa, of Casa Nostra, Cairness, Lonmay, near Fraserburgh, was unavailable for comment last night.