Hall escapes jail for nasty assault
A FORMER Lerwick man with mental health problems who admitted breaking a man’s leg so badly he is still recovering more than a year later escaped with a fine at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday.
The court heard the incident happened when 30 year old Thomas Hall, of 67 Pennan Road, Tillydrone, Aberdeen, went out in Lerwick on the night of 24 November 2012 while visiting his mother.
Walking down Commercial Street with his brothers, there was a verbal exchange with another group of young men.
As the two groups walked away from each other, a drunk man from the other group ran towards Hall and threw a punch at him.
He missed and ended up lying on the ground carried forward by his own momentum, at which point Hall jumped with both feet in the air and landed on the man’s leg.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said the victim’s leg was broken so severely that it required surgery with metal pins being inserted, and he was still recovering.
“It was a nasty, very bad injury indeed,” the fiscal said. Defence agent Neil McRobert said Hall, who had not drunk much alcohol before heading out that night, claimed that he had been taunted by the other group.
He added that his client had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and had spent some months in Aberdeen’s Royal Cornhill psychiatric hospital before and after the incident.
McRobert said that Hall had been concerned that the man would get up and attack him again, but accepted there was no justification for such violence.
“There was, I submit, a significant degree of provocation, but Mr Hall should not have done what he did,” he said.
Sheriff Philip Mann said the assault would “amply merit a custodial sentence”, but taking into consideration this was a first offence, there had been provocation and Hall’s mental health problems he limited the sentence to a £1,000 fine.
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He also placed Hall on a community payback order where he will be supervised for the next 12 months.
The sheriff said: “I think what you did was completely out of order and reprehensible, but I am well aware that what you did didn’t happen within a vacuum and there were circumstances which perhaps explain, but don’t excuse what you did.”
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