A Dundee golfer has revealed his horror after barely escaping with his life in a broad daylight chainsaw attack by a drug addict who told him “the madness is in the eyes”.
Arthur Innes, 61, was visiting Caird Park Golf Club with friends on May 2 this year when he was confronted at random by drugged Joe Henry Brown, who attempted to murder him in front of stunned onlookers.
Mr Innes, who works for Dundee City Council’s housing department, was left with a deep scar on his arm and cuts on his head and body and said he felt lucky to escape with his life.
“I put my boots away in the car and then I heard this engine revving up,” he said.
“I turned around and there was this guy there with no top on, no shoes and a chainsaw in his hand.
“My mate was only a few feet away from him and he started backing off. I thought it was a joke because it was all so surreal.
“Next thing, I’m wedged in between two cars, I have no place to go and by the time I realise what’s happening, he’s two feet in front of me and swinging the chainsaw towards my head.
“I ducked and the blade caught my arm. He turned and caught me a few more times but then I managed to barge past him and run towards my mate. I told him ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’
“Then he walked towards the dyke and broke the chain of the chainsaw. He left it right there on the putting green.”
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Mr Innes returned home the same night to be looked after by his partner Jacqueline and his stepdaughter. The 61-year-old said he was calm at first but later contemplated the real risk to his life posed by the incident.
He said: “What I was wearing was ripped to shreds but there was hardly any blood because it was so clean a cut. The staff came out and took me inside to wait for the paramedics to take me to Ninewells.
“I was still pretty calm when I got home because it all happened so quickly but I kept thinking that he could have caught me on the eye or the neck or even chopped my arm off. If I’d fallen, that would have been it, finished. That’s what his intention was.
“He just kept saying ‘the madness is in the eyes’, and his eyes were popping out of his head. The whole thing was terrifying.”
Brown yesterday pled guilty to assaulting Mr Innes by repeatedly striking him on the head and body with a chainsaw and attempting to murder him.
Mr Innes said he hoped the father-of-three would be locked up “for a very long time”.
He added: “What he put me and my friends through that day was petrifying. I will never forget the look on his face.
“He could have had my arm cut off, blinded me or even killed me. Had I have fallen, I assume he would have chopped me up.”
The charges
Joe Henry Brown, 45, appeared at the High Court in Glasgow and admitted attempting to murder Mr Innes with a chainsaw on May 2 at Caird Park Golf Club.
He also pled guilty to an amended charge of assaulting Andrew Hay by repeatedly punching him on the body, seizing him by the head and pushing him to the ground and being concerned in the supply of cannabis and possession of the other drugs.
Advocate depute Owen Mullan said Brown, a father of three, had approached Mr Innes and two other men on the golf course and was “topless, shoeless and shouting and swearing”, with a chainsaw in his hand.
His eyes were said to be “bulging out of his head” and he appeared to be heavily under the influence of drugs. He ran towards Mr Innes and struck him with the functioning chainsaw.
A cannabis farm, 36 ecstasy tablets and 34 grams of cocaine were found during search of his Graham Court home. Brown’s solicitor, Ronnie Renucci QC, told the court psychiatric reports concluded most of his behaviour was attributed to his drug misuse.
Before his arrest, a neighbour discovered Brown in the common close, where he told her he had “attacked someone with a chainsaw on a golf course”. He asked her “to hit him over the head with a large stone and kill him”.
Sentence was deferred until October 26 and Brown was remanded in custody.
