Drinks with a friend turned into a bar brawl that ended with one man lying motionless and bleeding on a pub floor, a court has heard.
Michael Davidson was captured on CCTV attacking his drinking buddy with a bar stool after a social meet-up descended into violence.
The victim was left unconscious and with cuts and bruises that required hospital treatment.
Davidson appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit a single charge of assault to severe injury and danger of life.
Fiscal depute Susan Love told the court that Davidson and the other man arrived at the Commercial Hotel in Keith at around 7.45pm on April 23 last year.
Friends were ‘in good spirits’
She said: “Whilst intoxicated they both appeared in good spirits and were served drinks.”
But just half an hour later the pair began pushing and shoving each other before wrestling and ending up on the floor, despite a barmaid’s efforts to separate them.
As some point during the struggle a witness heard Davidson tell the other man to “stop biting me” before he picked up a bar stool and struck the other man with it several times.
CCTV cameras captured the attack, which left the victim lying motionless on the floor of the pub.
Victim left unconscious
Davidson left the premises and a barmaid tended to the unconscious man, holding a towel to his head to stem the bleeding whilst they waited for an ambulance.
The man was taken to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin where he was treated for bruising and cuts to the right side of his back, torso, hand and arm. He had also suffered a seven-centimetre laceration to his head, which required closing.
The court heard that the man had since died of causes unrelated to the incident.
Solicitor Stephen Carty for Davidson told the court that his client and the man were indeed friends who had gone to the pub together on the day in question.
He said: “It is not quite clear as to why the fight started between them.”
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald deferred sentencing to next month for the production of a criminal justice social work report.
She also told Davidson, of Land Street, Keith, that she planned to have the CCTV footage of the attack played to the court at that hearing.