The family of a Fife artist who was clubbed with a hammer in his own home more than a year ago have told how they are trying to rebuild their lives.
Attempted murder victim Steven Davidson was left with permanent brain damage after his neighbour Barry Madley attacked him with a hammer on Valentine’s Day 2020.
He requires the assistance of an electric wheelchair and is a resident in Methil’s Forth View care home.
However, neither he nor his family have given up hope of living together or reuniting Steven with his son Syd, 12, in Canada.
Talented painter and keen guitarist Steven, 48, moved to Windsor in Ontario, Canada, in the mid-90s before returning to Fife – he originally hails from Methilhill – in 2017.
However, mum Margaret and sister Donna’s immediate aim is to have Steven at their family home again on a full time basis.
Currently he is brought by taxi every Sunday, but Margaret is hoping to have suitable accommodation secured by Christmas time.
Mother’s instinct
Earlier in June, Barry Madley pled guilty to attempting to murder Steven by repeatedly striking his head with the hammer at his home in Stewart Court, Methil.
Margaret, 65, said she believes Madley was inside Steven’s home when she tried to visit him that evening.
She said she had been speaking with Steven on the phone when his door buzzer sounded.
When she turned up a short time later, she found a close door had been broken and Steven’s door was locked, with no reply coming to her calls through the letterbox.
“I got this wave that there’s something wrong,” she said.
“Mother’s instinct – I was feeling sick.”
Margaret got a notification on her phone asking if it was her son who had just been taken away from Stewart Court in an ambulance.
She and Donna rushed to Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital.
She said: “It was like he had burgundy hair.
“I’ve never forgotten his eyes – they were just black, it was horrible.
“I can’t explain it, they weren’t there.”
Head rebuilt
Steven, who had managed to phone a neighbour, was taken for a CT scan and was taken immediately to Edinburgh for specialist care.
Margaret said: “He was in a coma and he’d been sick in his lung and he wasn’t breathing – nobody knows how long for.”
During a nine-hour overnight operation, he had three steel plates fitted in his head.
Surgeons had to remove his teeth during the procedure.
He stayed in a coma for 17 days.
Margaret explained when Steven woke, he could not let her go and had been stammering the three words “Baz,” “murder” and “hammer.”
Steven spent time in intensive care and high dependency units in Edinburgh before being moved back to Kirkcaldy and then the Sir George Sharp Unit at Cameron Hospital, a neuro-rehabilitation unit.
He moved into Forth View in March 2020, days after the coronavirus pandemic took full effect.
Now with only the use of his right hand, Steven requires an electric wheelchair.
While his long-term memory remains, he struggles with short term memory.
His family are grateful he cannot remember the attack.
Horrific discovery
Six weeks after the horrifying attack, Margaret and Donna were handed the keys to Steven’s flat.
Margaret said they could see from blood stains exactly how Steven had fallen but that was not their most worrying discovery.
While tidying up, the pair found an unfamiliar blood-stained sweatshirt and jogging bottoms, which Madley had cast off.
Margaret said she believes Madley was getting changed into Steven’s clothing when she came to the door.
“It’s just as well I didn’t get in,” she said.
Sentencing
The next big milestone for the Davidsons is July 14, when Madley will be sentenced at Edinburgh High Court.
Margaret said they have got what they want already as Madley was remanded at the last hearing.
She said: “I just want him to sit in four walls. I’m happy he was remanded.
“I’d be happy seeing him get what you would get for murder.
“The way that Steven has been left – you can’t get any closer to murder.
“It’s been hard work. What made it harder was the fact that he was walking the streets.”
Prison appeal from victim
Margaret put the attack down to greed and said Steven would not have been a target.
“He’s quiet. He keeps himself to himself.
“He lived on £51 a week. I have no idea who would do that.
“He didn’t drink in pubs, he didn’t have any enemies.
“He’s smiling through it all.
Steven told The Courier: “You’ve got to keep going.
“I’d like to see him getting the jail anyway.”
