Sheriff unimpressed by summary justice

Pete Bevington

9 May, 2008

A SHETLAND fisherman who was beaten up after brandishing a knife at his ex girlfriend’s house was put on probation at Lerwick Sheriff Court yesterday (Thursday).

Paul Taylor, aged 42, of Kalliness, Weisdale, admitting assaulting a man at a house in Lerwick’s Sandveien estate on 3 November last year. He also admitted throwing a kitchen knife, which embedded itself into a wall, and threatening to stab another man two weeks earlier on 20 October.

The court heard Taylor had gone on a downward spiral after the fishing boat he had shares in was decommissioned in 2001, after which his marriage broke up and he started drinking heavily.

A new relationship ended last year sending him further downhill, when he “trashed” his ex girlfriend’s house and threw the knife at the wall.

In November a neighbour spotted him “staggering” towards her house in a drunken state. It was night time and she was socialising nearby, so the neighbour went to inform her. A friend went to her house and confronted Taylor, who drew the kitchen knife from his back pocket.

Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said the other man immediately launched himself at Taylor, punched him to the ground, took the knife off him and “continued to mete out summary justice by assaulting him, repeatedly punching him on the head and body”.

Police later found Taylor bleeding heavily at his own house and took him to hospital, though he was released shortly afterwards.

Defence agent Gregor Kelly said the incidents marked “the depths of his downward spiral”, when on top of losing his girlfriend he was about to lose his job. He was feeling suicidal and had taken the knife to “self harm”.

“These two episodes mark a very bleak episode in his life,” Mr Kelly said, but things had since improved with a new relationship. He was no longer drinking and had an offer of a job on a fishing boat.

Sheriff Graeme Napier told Taylor that he had a drink problem, but alcohol was “no excuse for behaviour of this sort”.

The sheriff put him on probation for 18 months and ordered him to carry out 160 hours community service, but added: “What you didn’t deserve was to be beaten up by someone else, so I don’t think any compensation order is justified.”