Edinburgh drunken bottle attacker handed drug treatment order

A thug who smashed a bottle over the head of a man during a drunken fight has been placed on a drug treatment programme.

Graham Ferguson struck the unidentified male with the bottle after claiming the man had pulled a knife on him during a disturbance in Edinburgh city centre.

Ferguson, 52, repeatedly struck the victim with the bottle leaving the man covered in blood with a cuts to his head and nose.

The brutal assault at the city’s Hunter Square was captured on CCTV and Ferguson was identified from the footage and arrested.

The victim left the area before police arrived and has not been traced.

Ferguson admitted assaulting the man when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in January and he returned to the dock for sentencing on Monday.

Sheriff Kenneth Campbell QC placed Ferguson on a drug treatment and testing order for the next 18 months in a bid to address his substance abuse.

Previously fiscal depute Heather Carmichael told the court the attack took place at around 9.40pm on July 10 last year and was witnessed by door stewards working a nearby pub.

The brutal assault at the city’s Hunter Square was captured on CCTV and Ferguson was identified from the footage and arrested.

Ms Carmichael said a group of drinkers, including Ferguson, were spotted by the pub staff at the city’s Hunter Square who “began to quarrel among themselves”.

The fiscal said Ferguson, of Johnstone Terrace, Edinburgh, was seen to strike “the unknown complainer on the head with the bottle”.

The cut to the man’s head was said by one witness to be around “four inches” and he was seen to be “bleeding substantially”.

The fiscal added a member of the pub staff was a qualified first aider and had “managed to clean up the cut and stem the bleeding” before the man then left the area.

Mary Moultrie, defending, said the victim of the bottle attack had been the initial aggressor and had pulled a knife on Ferguson during the quarrel.

Ms Moultrie added: “There were various threats and allegations made by the complainer against Mr Ferguson which resulted in him losing his temper which he shouldn’t have done.”

Ferguson pleaded guilty to assaulting an unidentified male by repeatedly striking him to the head with a bottle to his injury at Hunter Square, Edinburgh, on July 10 last year.

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