Court / Mossbank man ordered to pay victim £1,500 for dental repairs after assault
A MAN from Mossbank who repeatedly kicked a pensioner and left his victim needing £1,500 worth of dental work has been ordered to pay over £2,000.
Christopher Stevenson, 36, had denied assaulting the man outside his own Mossbank home on 14 April last year after accusing him of taking photographs of his children.
Instead, Stevenson claimed he had acted in self defence – and that his 69-year-old victim had attacked him, kicking him in the testicles.
But following a trial at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday, Sheriff Philip Mann said he had issues with Stevenson’s reliability and credibility in evidence.
The court heard Stevenson had driven down to the house at around 11.30am after his children told him they thought a man in a white van had been taking photos of them.
The victim, giving evidence, said that Stevenson drove into his square “like something was on fire” and immediately confronted him about the allegations.
He told the court he had actually been sitting at a nearby bus stop to get mobile phone signal, and had called his daughter and another friend while parked there.
The pair began shouting at each other, and the victim said he tried to show Stevenson his phone to prove the allegations were false. He added he told him to phone the police if he believed it to be true.
“He didn’t like that, I knew something was going to happen,” the man said.
The victim said he was hit and fell to ground, before Stevenson “had a few kicks at me”.
Initially he said he tried to protect his face, but after Stevenson did not stop he thought “I might die down here” if he did not act. He said he grabbed Stevenson’s foot, and the assault stopped.
Injuries he sustained to his face, head and arms were shown to the court, with the man needing £1,529 worth of dental work as a result.
The victim said he had lived in Shetland for 50 years, including in a camp with 2,500 men, but had “never come across” a man like Stevenson.
His wife, briefly giving evidence, said she had witnessed her husband being punched and then saw him being kicked while he was on the ground.
She said she had been “very badly” affected by the assault, and had been receiving counselling since.
Stevenson claimed that the man instead advanced on him aggressively, shoving the phone in his face and shouting at him.
He said he approached him and said he was “sorry to confront him” about the allegations.
But Stevenson claimed his victim told him: “This is my town, you better go speak to your f***ing children.”
There was laughter from the public gallery when it was mentioned that the victim had said this was “my town”, which led to a rebuke from the sheriff that this was “not a sideshow”.
Stevenson claimed he had pushed the man to get him out of his personal space, before the man kicked him in the testicles and punched him.
He said he was “angry” at this point, and that he had swung to defend himself. He also claimed he put the man on the ground a total of three times, but that he kept getting back up and charging at him.
Stevenson denied that he ever kicked the man.
He said he had been “open and honest” with police, and had told them everything that he had told the court.
But procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie strongly disagreed, saying that Stevenson had never once told the police that he had punched the man or put him on the ground.
Stevenson was “trying to justify and explain the injuries” he caused after hearing how badly his victim had been hurt, he said.
Asked why he did not call the police about the allegation the man had been photographing children, Stevenson said: “The police took two weeks to come out and get me for this, so God knows how long this would have taken them”.
Mackenzie also questioned why Stevenson did not report the assault to police. His response to that was “I’m not a grass”.
Summing up, Mackenzie said this was “simply a matter of credibility” between the witnesses.
Stevenson had also denied a charge of failing to appear in court in October last year, having then said he had a family bereavement.
But he told the court today that it had been because of a relationship ending, which he said he was “ashamed and embarrassed” to admit.
Mackenzie said Stevenson had gone to his victim’s house with the sole purpose of aggressively confronting him, and had changed his story after finding out how badly his victim was hurt.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said the victim “wasn’t backwards in coming forward” in giving evidence, and added: “You could imagine the situation quite easily where he wasn’t doing as much listening as talking.”
Sheriff Mann, however, found the man to be a reliable and credible witness – while Stevenson had admitted telling a “bare-faced lie” about his non-court appearance.
He said he had issues with Stevenson’s testimony overall, and found him guilty over the non-appearance and the Mossbank assault last year.
Stevenson was ordered to pay his victim the full £1,529 dental work price as compensation, and was also fined an additional £600.
He was admonished in relation to the non-appearance at court.
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