An alcoholic has been told he was lucky that his latest drunken escapade had not caused a friend’s decapitation.
Daniel Gallacher had been drinking with a group of pals when he spotted a samurai sword in the house and began swinging it around the room.
Unfortunately for the 54-year-old, he struck one of his drinking buddies in the back of the neck with the blade.
The group was forced to apply a compress to the wound, which was bleeding profusely, and the police and ambulance service were called.
It eventually emerged that the man had not sustained as serious an injury as was first feared, but he did suffer a 1.5cm cut to his neck, which will result in a permanent scar.
Gallacher, of Leadenflower Court in Crieff, was originally to face an indictment alleging assault, but the Crown accepted a plea to brandishing the sword culpably and recklessly at an address in Corlundy Crescent, Crieff, on March 16 last year.
Sheriff Michael Fletcher made Gallacher subject to a two-year community payback order with conditions that he seeks alcohol treatment and carries out 100 hours of unpaid work.
He commented: “This has become a drunken episode rather than an assault, but one could say that it is very lucky that this man’s head did not come off. This could have had horrific consequences.”