Pair smashed victim’s eye socket in Kirkcaldy street attack

The attack took place on Sidlaw Street. Picture: Google

The victim suffered a fractured eye socket in the assault.

Blake Ewan (20) formerly of Aberdour, now living in Edinburgh and Stuart Graham, (27) of Somerville Street, Burntisland, appeared in the dock at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

They previously admitted that on June 23, 2017, at Sidlaw Street, Kirkcaldy, they assaulted a man by repeatedly punching him on the head to his severe injury.

The court heard there was a background of bad feeling between Ewan, who is also known by the forename Toni Anne, and the victim.

Defence solicitor Kerr Sneddon, for Ewan, said his client had been bullied by the complainer, with both of them going through gender-reassignment.

Mr Sneddon said the victim had been “calling him worthless and saying he should kill himself”.

He added: “This gave rise to an opportunistic attack” when his client and his cousin Graham was in a car in Kirkcaldy and saw the victim.

“The co-accused punched him first and then my client punched him twice,” said Mr Sneddon.

He described his client as “quite a complex character and he has had mental health difficulties.”

He went on, “He’s now living in Edinburgh where he is on a college course.”

The solicitor said that if sent to jail his client would “go to the back of the queue for gender re-assignment” and that “custody would be a disaster for him”.

Martin McGuire, solicitor for Graham, accepted that his client had a “more established record” and was currently on a community payback order.

He said the assault was the result of “a chance encounter when he had gone out to buy cannabis”.

Sheriff Charles MacNair told them, “This was concerted attack by the two of you. There may have a background to it but that was no justification for what you did, which was to inflict severe injury on the complainer.”

He told Ewan he had a limited record and so an alternative to custody could be imposed.

He was placed on a community payback order with three years’ supervision and 270 hours of unpaid work.

The sheriff told Graham: “Your record is far worse.” He jailed him for two years.

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