A Moray man butted a victim against a wall and kicked him in the face, Elgin Sheriff Court heard yesterday.
Michael Cameron, 24, had been drinking in the Newmarket Bar in Forres when he told Callum Brennan’s friend that he (Brennan) “deserved a hiding”.
Cameron later followed Mr Brennan outside the Tolbooth Street pub and butted him.
Fiscal depute Kevin Corrins told the court: “He collided with the wall behind him. It was while he was on the ground that the accused approached him again and kicked him to his face.
“That again caused him to collide with the wall.”
Mr Brennan got to his feet and “stumbled away”, and two police officers stopped to speak to him when they noticed he had a bleeding nose.
Mr Brennan was treated by paramedics for swelling to his face and a smaller cut to the bridge of his nose.
Mr Corrins said: “Police traced Cameron on Tolbooth Street and he was arrested. He remarked, ‘what am I lifted for, an assault?'”
On the journey in the police car from Forres to Elgin Police Station, Cameron told the officers to remove his handcuffs and threatened to “sort them out”.
Cameron’s defence agent Stephen Carty said: “I think there has been a difficulty between them (Cameron and Brennan) in the past.
“Cameron accepts that he assaulted him.”
Cameron, of 12 Invererne Gardens, Forres, admitted assaulting Mr Brennan by butting him and kicking him on December 9, 2012.
He also pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening and abusive manner by threatening police constables with violence on the A96 Forres-Elgin road on the same date.
Sheriff David Hall told Cameron that his behaviour was unacceptable.
He sentenced him to a community payback order requiring him to do 150 hours of unpaid work, as an alternative to a prison sentence.
Cameron will also have to pay £300 in compensation to Mr Brennan.