A 70-year-old man had his face rebuilt with six metal plates after being stamped on by a schoolboy in Fife.
The 17-year-old boy was detained for a year after being found guilty of the attack in Cardenden.
Sentencing him, a sheriff said he was surprised the assault was not treated as attempted murder.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found by jurors to have “brutally” attacked Ronald McCulloch on the town’s Cardenden Road, on October 8 in 2019.
He was just 15 years old when he carried out the assault, which left the pensioner severely injured, permanently impaired and permanently disfigured.
Jurors at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court convicted the boy in January of seizing the then-67-year-old in a headlock and repeatedly punching him, causing him to fall to the ground.
The teenager then repeatedly punched and kicked and stamped on his head.
Rehabilitation “front and centre”
Sheriff Alastair Brown, sentencing, said: “My first task is to assess the seriousness of the offence.
“This was a brutal, vicious assault.
“We don’t know how the incident started.
“I’ve heard Mr McCulloch’s version and I’ve heard your version.
“However it started, there came a point where you were seen by a completely independent, sober eye witness, holding Mr McCulloch in a headlock and punching him repeatedly to the face, then putting him on the ground and punching, then stamping, on his head.”
Sheriff Brown said that had it been an adult in the dock, he would have considered passing sentencing up to the High Court, where the maximum sentence exceeds five years imprisonment.
“Your culpability is reduced by your age and the difficulties in your background.
“I have to consider what might be in your best interests to stop you doing this ever again.
“I have to have your rehabilitation front and centre.
“Bluntly, I was a little surprised that this was not charged with attempted murder.
“With an adult, I would be thinking of remitting this to the High Court.
“This was an extremely serious offence and I do not consider it can be dealt with in the community.
“You will go to detention for 12 months.”
Immature
Defending, solicitor David Bell described Mr McCulloch’s injuries as “life changing.”
Mr Bell said: “Obviously, we’re dealing with a very serious offence.
“He was remanded during the currency of the trial for a night. It was not an experience he enjoyed.
“He’s 17 now, he was 15 at the time of the offence.
“There are some, perhaps, areas of his thinking and his cognitive function that have not been explored as much as they could have been.
“I think he is quite immature, not just on the face of his age.
“There’s almost a wide-eyed response to questioning.
“It’s a very, very serious offence whether it’s a first offender or not.
“He seems to be recognising the seriousness of the situation.
“This was during the time when he was still at school.
“He’s not someone who would be described as an out-of-control, hardened criminal.
“He’s at college. There seems to be some progress with his education there.
“He seems to have managed to keep accommodation, he lives on his own.”
