A traumatised former soldier who battered an Inverurie man with a snow shovel has been spared jail after a sheriff was told he had sorted his life out.
Kristopher Knight rained down repeated blows on his 39-year old victim following an argument in a garden on Polinar Place, Inverurie, in July 2020.
It took a jury less than two hours to find the 27-year-old guilty by majority of assault to severe injury with a weapon at a trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court last month.
The jury was told that Knight got into the row with the man over claims by a friend that he was being “threatening” a neighbour.
Used handle to smash victim’s eye
Knight went to his door to speak to the 39-year-old and the two men got into an argument.
Knight picked up the snow shovel and began striking the man on the back of the head and body before using the shovel’s wooden handle to hit the man in the face causing a hematoma to his eye.
Fiscal depute Lucy Simpson told jurors that the man had suffered a “vicious and sustained attack” by Knight outside his own home.
She said: “He described how he was at home alone when he heard a knock or a bang on the window and heard a male voice shouting ‘Did you start on my mate?’
“It wasn’t a male that he recognised and he told the man he didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Neighbour gave evidence
Knight had lodged a special defence of self-defence and claims the man attacked him first with a hammer.
However, a neighbour who gave evidence identified Knight as the attacker and described how he saw the victim trying to climb back to the communal door of his flat to escape him.
Following the verdict, it was revealed that Knight had three previous convictions for violent assaults from 2016.
Today’s sentencing also comes after Knight was sentenced last week for issuing threats and sending abusive messages to his former partner after she ended their relationship.
Defence agent Liam McAllister said his client suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome following his time in the military, but that he has made dramatic changes to his life since the assault.
‘Trauma of the most horrific kind’
“He now has a full-time job and more stability in his personal life. He effectively owns and runs a local football team and he has thrown himself into that in a very positive way,” he said.
“Mr Knight was dealing with trauma of the most horrific kind … people and men that you are responsible for being blown up and shot in front of you as a very young man on the battlefield.”
Mr McAllister added that Knight is “deeply ashamed” of his behaviour but for the first time has a “clear path” ahead of him which is free of any court proceedings.
Sheriff Morag McLaughlin told Knight that a custodial sentence had to be at the “forefront of her mind” but that she could impose a community-based punishment instead.
“A large part of that is because of the work you have done since this event to address some of the things causing your offending,” she said. “You have stayed out of trouble since this offence.”
She sentenced Knight, of Gordon Avenue, Inverurie, to a community payback order comprising 250 hours of unpaid work and supervision for two years.
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