Fife man who went on Christmas shopping trip after brutal attack appeals conviction

A thug who went Christmas shopping after trying to kill a man with a crowbar has failed in a bid to have his attempted murder conviction quashed.

Scott Nelson (29), left Greig Ramsay (38), with serious head injuries in the savage attack.

It came after he repeatedly punched Mr Ramsay's pal, Mark Christie, 42, when he opened the door to him late at night in Kirkcaldy.

Nelson was arrested after returning home from a festive shopping trip following the horror last December 23.

Nelson told the High Court in Edinburgh he'd turned up to chase a gambling debt and was acting in self-defence after being attacked.

But Mr Christie told a jury: "Once I'd opened the door I'd been hit with something. I can't remember anything else."

Nelson, of Kirkcaldy, was given 12 and a half years after being unanimously convicted of attempted murder and assault.

His lawyers launched an appeal against his conviction.

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They argued that Lord Uist had failed to tell jurors that, if they didn’t believe their client acted in self defence, they could convict him on a charge of assault to severe injury instead of attempted murder.

They told appeal judges Lord Brodie, Lord Glennie and Lord Turnbull that because their colleague didn’t do this, Nelson fell victim to a miscarriage of justice.

However, the Appeal Court ruled the circumstances of the offence meant that no jury could come to the conclusion that Nelson assaulted his victim to the man’s severe injury.

In a written judgment issued at the court, Lord Brodie - wrote: “Far from being an obvious possible verdict, we consider that a verdict of assault under provocation was not one which a reasonable jury could have reached.

“There was therefore no misdirection and no miscarriage of justice.”

The judges also rejected another attempt by Nelson’s legal team to reduce his prison sentence - they had claimed the 12 and a half year term was “excessive.”

Lord Brodie wrote: “These were offences which called for a significant custodial sentence.There is no question of the sentence selected by the trial judge being excessive.”

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