A would-be car thief who stabbed a 62-year-old home owner with a screwdriver when he confronted him in his driveway was yesterday jailed for four years.
Ryan Coutts, 29, from Aberdeen, was attempting to steal George Smith’s car when the attack took place in the city’s Deveron Road on October 13 last year.
At the High Court in Glasgow, Coutts admitted assaulting Mr Smith to his permanent disfigurement and danger of his life. He also pled guilty to attempting to steal his car.
Coutts, of Aberdeen, originally faced an attempted murder charge, but his plea to the reduced charge was accepted.
Judge Lady Stacey told Coutts: “You committed a nasty offence against a man in his sixties. You and he are lucky he was not more seriously injured..”
Coutts will be monitored for two years after his release.
Co-accused Jade Martin, 29, of Nigg Kirk Road, Aberdeen, admitted acting in a racially aggravated manner towards a police officer and threatening to blow up Mr Smith’s home. She was ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work.
The court was told Mr Smith’s wife, Doreen, woke him at 6.40am to tell him a man and a woman were inside his Ford Focus. Mr Smith quickly dressed and ran out.
In the exchanges that followed, Coutts punched Mr Smith several times to the head, causing him to fall to the ground.
As he and Martin ran off, Mrs Smith heard Coutts say: “It’s okay, I stabbed him.”
Mr Smith suffered stab injuries to his neck, chin, lower lip and abdomen.
Police found Coutts and Martin hiding beneath a mattress at an address in Aberdeen the following day.
A bloodstained screwdriver was found nearby. The blood was a match for Mr Smith’s DNA.
