An Angus schoolboy avoided detention for a brutal gang assault which saw two of his friends sent behind bars.
Dhruv Sharma, 17, was in a general level biology exam at Arbroath Academy last month when his solicitor entered a plea of guilty to a vicious five-man attack on a 20-year-old man with learning difficulties.
Video footage taken on Sharma’s phone showed him and four co-accused repeatedly punching, kicking and stamping on their victim as he lay on the ground pleading for help.
Sharma previously admitted assaulting a man on Dens Road, Arbroath, on August 6 by kicking him in the head and body to his injury.
Co-accused Josh Stott, 17, North Grimsby, Brandon Young, 17, Gedy Place, Steven McAdam, 18, North Grimsby, all Arbroath, and Jordan Cooper, 18, Blackness Road, Dundee, all also admitted playing their part in the attack.
On Tuesday at Arbroath Sheriff Court, Sharma, of the town’s Ernest Street, was given a one-year community payback order with supervision, as his family looked on from the public gallery.
Defence agent Nick Markowski said Sharma’s appearance on the front page of The Courier when the case first called had been a source of embarrassment to his family.
He said: “He has been living in Scotland for around one-and-a-half years and he’s now been accepted for an engineering course at Angus College.
“He has asked me to publicly apologise for his behaviour. It does appear there was an element of peer pressure.”
Stott and Young were also given community payback orders for a year with a supervision requirement by Sheriff Peter Paterson.
However, McAdam was jailed for seven months due to the violent nature of his actions, while the sheriff said the attack had been arranged by Cooper and sentenced him to nine months.