An argument between feuding housemates had a sting in the tail for one after she found herself stabbed in the bottom with a kitchen fork.
Alistair Maxwell sank the implement into Debra Sievewright’s right buttock after a heated argument swiftly turned violent.
She was fortunate to escape with just a minor puncture wound and a scratch given the not inconsiderable size of the fork, which was like those used in the carving of roasts.
Miss Sievewright, 33, admitted having been the first to pick up the pronged fork, before having it wrestled from her by Maxwell.
“I think he thought I was going to strike him with the fork, so he grabbed it off me,” she told Perth Sheriff Court on Friday.
“He jagged me in the bottom with it. It was just a wee quick prick. To be honest, it was just a silly argument.”
Maxwell, 29, of St Catherine’s Square in Perth, denied assaulting Miss Sievewright to her injury on February 10.
He claimed the entire assault had been concocted by the complainer in a bid to scam him out of benefit money he had paid into her bank account for safekeeping.
His solicitor, meanwhile, put it directly to the witness that the two puncture marks had been self-inflicted.
It was suggested that she had herself made holes in her jeans to back up her claim. Depute fiscal Robbie Brown dismissed those claims.
He commented: “One can never rely on people not being stupid and stupidity is often much to the fore in the cases brought before this court but this would be stupid in a really rather odd way.”
Sheriff William Gilchrist rejected Maxwell’s version of events, jailing him for six months in light of his criminal record.