A 29-year-old man has been placed on probation for two years and ordered to perform 200 hours of unpaid work for carrying out a vicious assault.
Kevin Hardie, now living in Banff, admitted that on March 7 2011, at Abbey Green, Arbroath, while acting with another, he assaulted Eric Stewart and repeatedly punched him on the head and body and repeatedly kicked him on the head and body, all to his severe injury.
Stewart suffered a deep cut to the right side of his chest, causing him breathing difficulties.
He also received a number of fractures, cuts on the back, bruising to the face, a severe swollen left side and his eye was swollen shut.
The attack happened after a row over missing drugs.
Stewart was discovered in the park by a teenager and his mother who alerted police. Hardie later turned up at the police station reporting an assault on himself.
However, the blood on his jacket was that of Stewart.
Defence agent Billy Rennie told Arbroath Sheriff Court on Tuesday that Hardie has now turned his life around since moving north.
Sheriff Peter Anderson said: ”What you did was violent, criminal and dangerous. You could have killed this man. The fact you were provoked is not an excuse.”