A dog walker was left with a fractured cheek bone after being punched in the face by a man whose friend had accused him of assaulting a young family member.
Scott Kerwin struck Craig Smith to his severe injury during the altercation in Dunfermline’s Garvock Bank on July 16 2020.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard Kerwin and his friend, Kevin Feeney, had approached the man as he walked his dog and asked if he had assaulted a teenager.
Procurator fiscal depute Catherine Stevenson said Mr Smith replied to say he was just walking his dog.
The fiscal depute said: “The accused, Feeney, then said ‘if you have we will come back and get you’.
“The complainer said ‘get out of my face’.
“At this point, Feeney said to Mr Smith ‘we will come back and get you and your dog, to which the complainer replied: ‘Don’t threaten my dog’.
“Kerwin then punched the complainer to the right side of the face.”
Fractured cheek bone
Ms Stevenson said a witness saw the victim holding his face on the ground and saw Feeney, 34, leaving the scene.
The court heard Mr Smith had a bruised and swollen right eye and an x-ray revealed a small fracture around the cheek bone, near his right eye.
Kerwin pled guilty to the assault charge at an earlier hearing, while Feeney also previously admitted acting in an intimidating and aggressive manner towards the man, uttering threats of violence and threatening to harm his dog.
Feeney’s defence lawyer, Alexander Flett, said his client’s 17-year-old family member had come home crying following an altercation with a male dog walker.
Mr Flett said: “It was taken that gentleman was the person involved in the altercation.”
Kerwin’s defence lawyer, Chris Sneddon, said his 33-year-old client expressed “considerable remorse” for the assault.
Sentencing
Sheriff James MacDonald said there was “significant disparity” in the seriousness of offences carried out by Feeney and Kerwin in the case but that Feeney’s offending history was worse.
He told Kerwin, of Fodbank View, his assault was a serious matter which was often seen prosecuted on indictment.
The sheriff sentenced Kerwin to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work as part of a community payback order.
Feeney, of Abel Place, was sentenced to a 12-week restriction of liberty order to stay at home seven days a week between the hours of 9pm and 7am.
