A Perth dad carved up a man’s face with a bread knife in a “gruesome” assault at the end of a marathon drinking session.
William Joseph Halliday hacked at victim Michael Ravenscroft with a six-inch blade at a flat in the city’s Viewfield Place.
Perth Sheriff Court heard how Mr Ravenscroft required plastic surgery after his mouth was slashed open and his ear “chopped in three places”.
Laundry worker Halliday, 25, denied the attack and tried to pin the blame on his neighbour.
He was convicted by a jury after two days of often harrowing evidence.
‘There was blood everywhere’
Mr Ravenscroft, from Blackpool, told the trial he had been staying at Alexandrina Mann’s Viewland Place flat during a three-day visit to Perth in 2022.
There, he met her neighbour Halliday – who he knew as “Joe” – and on March 24, all three spent the day drinking in the flat.
Mr Ravenscroft, 31, said he went out to a shop and returned with a crate of Tennents lager and a bottle of Buckfast.
He said: “I was violently attacked as I walked through the door.
“Joe ran at me with a kitchen knife and swung it across my face.
“He cut my mouth open.”
The witness said: “I tried to defend myself until I couldn’t defend myself any more.”
He said he was slashed “four or five times” across the mouth, ear and neck.
“We ended up in the kitchen, there was blood everywhere.
“I tried to grab the knife off him, I remember punching him.”
Taxi driver saviour
Mr Ravenscroft told prosecutor Duncan McKenzie how he wrapped his jumper around his head to stem the bleeding and ran out of the block.
“If it wasn’t for that taxi man outside, I wouldn’t be stood here today.
“I banged on his window and screamed: ‘Help, help, I think I’m going to die’.
“I think he thought I was going to rob him because I had my jumper round my face.
“He wound down the window a bit but he couldn’t hear me.
“So I took the jumper off and then there was blood all over his taxi.”
Mr Ravenscroft needed plastic surgery to repair his face, with stitches “inside and out”.
Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC warned jurors to prepare themselves for “gruesome” photos of his injuries shown on monitors in the court.
‘Wild eyes’
Taxi driver Duncan Gibb, 45, said he had been waiting for a “no-show” customer when he heard a commotion inside the block.
He saw the shadows of two men “with hands swinging”, at a flat window.
“I heard banging and thumping and things getting thrown about.
“There was raised voices, mostly male.”
He said he phoned for an ambulance for Mr Ravenscroft.
“He took his hand away from his face and blood started splashing all over the car,” he said.
Mr Gibb said he heard a male voice shouting: “Get out. F***ing out before I f***ing kill you.”
Jurors heard how an upstairs neighbour went to Ms Mann’s door after hearing a commotion that left her young children “terrified”.
She said Ms Mann answered the door, holding a kitchen knife.
While she was there, Mr Ravenscroft ran past her and down the corridor.
She said: “He was grey, I had never seen a live person that colour.”
A second man – thought to be Halliday – followed.
The neighbour said she was scared of his “wild eyes”.
Ms Mann said she had been woken by a loud noise and saw Halliday standing over Mr Ravenscroft in the hallway.
Accused’s evidence
Giving evidence on the final day of his trial, Halliday said he, Mr Ravenscroft and Ms Mann had been drinking round-the-clock since the day before and went on to give a wildly different account of the assault.
He claimed all three went to the shop and returned to Ms Mann’s with alcohol to resume drinking.
He said Mr Ravenscroft went into his flat across the hall but 10 minutes later, he returned and attacked Halliday in the hallway.
He claimed he was struck with a two-pronged carving fork.
He said he saw Ms Mann with two knives in the kitchen but said he did not witness her assaulting Mr Ravenscroft.
Lawyers for Halliday had lodged a special defence of incrimination, accusing Ms Mann of the assault.
Under cross-examination by defence solicitor Pauline Cullerton, she had denied this.
Jail warning
Halliday, of Lewis Place, Perth, was found guilty of assaulting Mr Ravenscroft to his severe injury and permanent impairment.
Sheriff Bain told him: “That attack was clearly very frightening for Mr Ravenscroft and it results in a most awful injury to his face.
“From that injury, he has been left with a permanent reminder of his ordeal in the form of a very visible scar.”
The sheriff deferred sentence for background reports and Halliday was released on bail.
The trial was held as Perth hosted a 27ft Knife Angel statute, made up of confiscated blades to warn against the dangers of such violence.
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