A young thug claimed he attacked a man because he allegedly held a piece of silver foil with a “substance” on it below his nose after he passed out at a party.
Owen Phillips claimed he later saw the same person smoking heroin off an identical piece of tin foil in the bathroom of the house, a court heard.
He lost the rag and threatened to kill Craig Westwood before biting him on the back pushing him to the ground and repeatedly punching him on the head to his injury.
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Livingston Sheriff Court heard Mr Westwood – who was 19 at the time of the early morning assault in Livingston, West Lothian, last August – suffered a bite mark to his torso and swelling to his left eye as a result of the vicious attack.
Phillips, 21, a prisoner at Barlinnie, pled guilty on indictment to charges of assault to severe injury while on bail and breaching a bail condition by being outwith his home the same day.
His denials that he chased Mr Westwood while brandishing a machete at him causing him to fall out of a first floor window and head butting another man at the party house in Quentin Court, Dedridge, on 22 August 2021 were accepted by the Crown.
Kevin Dugan, defending, said his client, who had never taken heroin in his life, had become unconscious at the house party.
Mr Dugan told the court: “He became aware that the complainer had been placing tin foil with some substance below his nose.
“When he came to and remembered this he went to the bathroom in the house where this had taken place and found the complainer smoking heroin off the same tin foil.
“On the night in question, having thought about all this he became enraged, and that’s what it was all about.”
He said Phillips had no previous convictions and had been held on remand for nearly 300 days – the equivalent of serving a 20-month prison sentence.
Sheriff Douglas Kinloch said the charges Phillips had admitted were much less serious than the original allegations involving a machete and he had effectively served a prison sentence of nearly two years.
He told the accused: “I think the way to deal with this is to technically impose a fine which will be remitted with the result that it will go on your record that a fine was imposed but you will be released from custody.”
The sheriff fixed the fine at £560 and formally remitted the fine, allowing Phillips to go free.
