A man has gone on trial accused of assaulting and abducting a motorist from outside a north-east hotel.
Andrew Waddell denies allegations that he attacked 20-year-old Alexander Fraser at the Ban Car Hotel at Lonmay in Aberdeenshire in April last year.
The 26-year-old is accused of seizing hold of Mr Fraser and pulling him from his vehicle, repeatedly punching him on the head and causing him to fall to the ground.
It is alleged Waddell pursued Mr Fraser, repeatedly kicked him on the body and abducted him by forcing him into a van.
He is alleged to have then driven to various locations where he forced him against his will to leave the van and then get back inside.
Waddell, of 184 Altyre Avenue, Glenrothes, faces a second charge that, on the same day, at St Magnus Road in Sandhaven he struggled violently with two police officers.
Yesterday, he appeared at Peterhead Sheriff Court and denied both charges.
His agent, solicitor Brian Allison, lodged a special defence of self defence.
A jury of 13 women and two men heard evidence from Waddell’s alleged victim.
Mr Fraser told the court that he had been driving from Fraserburgh to Peterhead, when he stopped in the car park of the Ban Car Hotel to rest.
He said he sat in his red Ford Fiesta and fell asleep.
Initially, Mr Fraser said he could not remember what happened next, but recalled later telling police he had been “kidnapped”.
When questioned further by fiscal Felicity Merson, he said: “I was asleep in the car and the next thing I know I was at the other side of the Ban Car, struggling with someone.”
He said he could not see his attacker, but he remembered falling down in a field next to the car park.
“I tried to walk back to my car,” he said, “I could see a white van parked behind it. The driver’s door was open.”
He said the next thing he remembered was sitting in the back of the van as it drove along a road.
Mr Fraser told the court there were two men in the car, a passenger called Michael Buchan and the driver, who he could not identify.
Eventually the van stopped and he saw they had arrived at garages in Peterhead.
He told the court he remembered trying to open one of the lock-ups with a metal bar.
After the garage’s owner arrived with a key, he was told by someone to get back in the van.
“I thought it wasn’t a good idea to stand up against a heap of people and say I’m not doing what you say,” he said.
The court heard the van was driven to Sandhaven. Mr Fraser said the back door was then opened by a police officer.
The trial, before Sheriff Andrew Miller, continues.
