"No, I've hit the wrong person?!"

Monday 23 December 2019

A man has been locked up for repaying a friend's offer of shelter for the night by smashing him over the head with a stool.

26-year-old Callum Smith was given a total of four months in prison, when he was sentenced for assaulting a friend of his while he was a guest in that friend's house.

He also had £93 worth of cannabis on him when he was taken into custody.

On the 19 October this year, Smith was in the Last Post pub when he met a former colleague of his, whom he had been friends with but had not seen in some years. The two men started drinking together, and played a game of pool. As the afternoon turned to evening, Smith's friend invited him back to his home so they could carry on drinking and catching up.

When their evening was coming to a close, Smith said he felt he was too drunk to get home, and so his friend offered to let him stay at his house until the morning, and went upstairs to get a duvet for him.

But when the complainant came back down stairs, Smith started to accuse him of stealing his phone, and an argument started. That argument quickly concluded when Smith picked up a stool and hit his friend over the head - who then stumbled and fell on the floor - before quickly punching him in the head while he was on the ground.

Smith appeared to have been so drunk, he became confused about who he was with. 

Smith then tried to leave the property, but came across someone else who was living with his friend. Smith told that person what had happened, but in telling the story, described the complainant as someone completely unrelated, and accused that person of stealing his phone. 

When the person he was talking to pointed out that he was not in that unrelated-person's house, but in the complainant's, Smith allegedly exclaimed: "No, I've hit the wrong person!".

Advocate Paul Lockwood urged Judge Gary Perry to not send his client to prison, and handed up a letter written by Smith which expressed "obvious remorse" for what he had done, but Judge Perry pointed out that people should be at their safest when in their own homes. 

"This was an offence where essentially a Good Samaritan allowed you into their one and looked after you, and you repaid them by picking up a weapon," he said, "and that wasn't good enough for you either, because when he was down, you went and punched him again." 

Smith was given four months for the assault, and one month for the cannabis, to be served concurrently. 

Pictured top: Les Nicolles Prison.