News / Frightened man faces prison for stabbing
A YOUNG Shetland man faces spending the next few years behind bars after he pled guilty to stabbing a man with a knife and leaving him with life threatening injuries.
Lerwick Sheriff Court heard on Thursday that 23 year old Scott Anderson had armed himself with a blade and gone to the door of a man who had been threatening him for the past day in an effort to resolve their differences.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said here had been a “history of bad feeling” between the two men, probably concerning drugs, when Anderson and two younger friends went to Lerwick’s Pitt Lane around 5.30am on 16 January.
The three men, Mackenzie said, had been drinking and Anderson had said he wanted to speak to the man.
Before they left he armed himself with a knife, and when they reached the top of the lane he continued alone, pulling the knife out of his pocket, opening the blade and returning it to his pocket before knocking on the man’s door.
Mackenzie said the two friends had different versions of events they witnessed from the top of the lane.
They agreed there had been an argument on the doorstep, however one said Anderson had landed the first punch while the other said he had first received a head butt and slipped on the ice.
One of the witnesses had seen the complainer arm himself with a weapon during the fracas.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said that Anderson had received two threats within the previous 12 hours that he would be stabbed and he wanted to “clear the matter up”.
He added that immediately after the incident, one of the two friends had “bizarrely” approached the complainer and been invited in to have a CD returned to him.
The court heard that it was a few hours before the victim realised he had been stabbed, at which point he contacted the police and was taken to hospital suffering from a punctured lung, a potentially fatal condition.
He stayed in hospital for almost two weeks, but has since made a full recovery.
Allan said that his client, whose address was given as Aberdeen prison, had an extensive criminal record for dishonesty in which violence had not featured before.
“He says it was the first fight he was in,” he said.
“He was intimidated and scared and thought the threats made against him would be carried out. He went to try and sort it out and clearly that was a silly thing to do. He was full of adrenaline, he was scared and he knows that what he did was wrong.
“This is not a black and white case of straight forward assault with a knife. There is considerable background to it.”
He added that Anderson, who has been on remand since his arrest, had found it easier to cope with life inside than outside prison, where his life was laid out for him.
However he was starting to break out of this cycle of offending and two days after the attack had been planning to move to Orkney to be with his partner.
Sheriff Philip Mann said that he would be sending Anderson to jail, but would consider placing him on a supervised attendance order, which would require a sentence of less than four years.
The case was deferred until 29 May for social work background reports.
The court heard that were it not for the mitigating circumstances in this case, Anderson would have been appearing in the High Court for a more serious offence.
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