A man has been jailed for two years after carrying out assaults during a fracas which led to the death of a man at the Nethergate taxi rank in Dundee.
Adam Valentine, 25, pushed a woman who ended up unconscious after she struck her head on the ground.
Valentine also punched Brian Fox on the body in an assault on January 1 this year.
The 62-year-old, who was trying to act as a peacemaker, suffered a fatal head injury after Valentine’s former co-accused landed a single punch on him.
Wes Reid, 20, of Newport Road, Tayport, had denied killing Mr Fox by punching him on the head causing him to strike his head on the ground.
He maintained that he acted in self defence and was acquitted of the culpable homicide of Mr Fox at an earlier trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Valentine, a prisoner in Perth, had also originally faced a charge of killing Mr Fox while acting together with Reid.
But following a legal debate during the trial the judge, Lord Beckett, upheld a defence submission challenging the evidential basis for that charge.
Valentine then admitted a reduced charge of assaulting Mr Fox by punching him on the body.
The attack occurred when he was unconscious after the initial blow was struck.
He was also found guilty of assaulting Sandra Baird to her severe injury and to the danger of her life at the taxi rank.
The 64-year-old shop manager had been out for a meal with a friend before she was assaulted.
Lord Beckett told Valentine that his assault on Mr Fox as he lay unconscious on the ground was “despicable and cowardly”, and added: “But it played no part in his death.”
The judge said the assault on Ms Baird has had physical and emotional consequences for her.
Lord Beckett told Valentine he considered it necessary to punish him and to seek to deter him and others from “engaging in random acts of violence”.
