A mother has told a court how her son “screamed in pain” after an alleged beating by men armed with baseball bats and pick axe handles.
John Dunsire and his older brother Lee claim they were abducted in a white van and taken to a Fife industrial site where they were repeatedly assaulted by a gang of “up to 14 people”.
Their mother Joan told a jury at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court she found them lying, badly injured, on a street corner.
The trial heard the two men initially refused to give signed statements to police because they were “fearful for their lives.”
Brothers William and John Matthew, 59 and 63, and 24-year-old Owen Bonner are accused of abducting and assaulting the pair on April 13, 2021.
The attack, which left the men severely injured and permanently disfigured, allegedly happened at William Matthew and Son contractors site, off Denburn Road, in Kirkcaldy.
The three men, all from the Kirkcaldy area, deny the allegations.
On the third day of their trial, fiscal depute Ronnie Hay confirmed charges against a fourth man, Connor Davies, had been withdrawn.
The 27-year-old was formally found not guilty.
Call for help
Joan Dunsire, 67, told the court she was phoned by son Lee, 44, on the morning of April 13, 2021.
“He was in a very bad state.
“He asked me to pick up him and Bud – that’s John’s nickname.
“He said they’d just been battered and please could I come and get him.”
Mrs Dunsire drove to the corner of Hayfield Road and Denburn Road.
“The two of them were lying on the ground,” she said.
“Lee was asking me to help get Bud into my car.
“I looked at them both and thought I’d need to get an ambulance for them, even though the hospital was just a few minutes’ drive away.”
She said: “As soon as I touched Bud to get him up, he started screaming in pain.”
Mrs Dunsire decided to call an ambulance, rather than drive them to hospital herself.
“The ambulance arrived while I was on the phone.
“They took Lee first because he had a head wound.
“When I turned round they were cutting Bud’s clothes off to check his injuries.”
Lee ‘came off worse’
The pair were taken to Victoria Hospital.
Mrs Dunsire was not allowed to visit them, due to Covid restrictions.
She said that later, she met John, 40, in the hospital grounds.
“He told me Lee had nothing to do with it. He was crying and said it was all his fault.
“He said: ‘Sorry, he’s come off worse’.”
John told his mum that he had taken a quad bike from the Matthews’ yard.
“He said they had been given a lift in a van.
“They thought they were going to where the quad bike was parked but then the van turned into the yard.
“They knew exactly what was going to happen to them.”
The court heard that Mrs Dunsire was initially told by her sons they had been beaten by three men armed with baseball bats, who jumped out at them from a van.
“They didn’t want to tell me the truth at that time.
“They were trying to protect me because they were scared that something might happen to me.”
Police interviews
Jurors heard how police visited the brothers several times while they recovered in hospital.
They both refused to sign statements but gave some information to officers.
Detective Constable Lindsay Sword said John Dunsire told her on the evening of the alleged attack he had been picked up in a white van, taken to an unknown location and “assaulted by up to 14 people with bats”.
“He didn’t want to provide a statement.
“He was scared that there would be further assaults if he did.”
Detective Constable James McDonough said Lee Dunsire later told him he had seen a Royal Mail van at the yard following the assault.
“Lee went to get help by grabbing hold of the handle on the back of the van.
“But the van took off. It may have been there at the time of the assault.”
Police were given descriptions of some of the men at the yard, including a “big boy in a blue boiler suit with grey hair” and a man who was “balding”.
Allegations
The charges state the Matthew brothers and Bonner repeatedly punched and kicked the Dunsires in the body and repeatedly struck them in the head and body with pick axe shafts and baseball bats.
It is also said they stood and jumped on John Dunsire’s head and struck him with a metal crutch.
The alleged attack is said to have resulted in severe injury, permanent impairment and disfigurement to both brothers and been to the danger of John Dunsire’s life.
The men are also accused of making threats of violence to the brothers.
The trial, before Sheriff Robert More, continues.
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