A man who brutally attacked his sleeping cousin with a golf club and left him for dead has admitted he was drunk when he fled the scene and crashed his car.
Neil Smith drove his Renault Laguna off the road after the savage assault in Cornhill, near Banff.
The 22-year-old landscape gardener climbed out of his overturned vehicle and staggered to the nearest house with a light on.
There, he told the shocked resident: “I’ve just hit my cousin to death with a golf club.”
Smith, of Lumsden, near Huntly, admitted the assault when he appeared at Peterhead Sheriff Court last month.
He narrowly avoided being sent to jail and was instead told to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work as part of a supervision order.
Sheriff Alison Stirling told him to pay £1,000 compensation to his victim, Callum Smith, who was left permanently scarred.
Smith has now returned to court and admitted a further charge of drink driving moments after the attack in September last year.
He was fined £450 and banned from the road for 18 months.
Last night, his cousin said he could not understand why Smith was not jailed.
“It’s no wonder that folk re-offend or don’t abide by the laws when sentencing is that light,” he said.
“For someone who could have killed a family member and could have killed someone on the road, he’s done not bad.”
Procurator fiscal David Thorburn told the court the pair – who used to be close friends – had been drinking together on the evening of the assault.
Following a minor disagreement when they returned to Callum Smith’s remote cottage, he went to bed and was awakened by his cousin striking him repeatedly about the head with a golf club.
The court heard Mr Smith was hit so hard, he was left with an imprint of the club on his back. He also suffered a large cut to the back of his head and needed six stitches to a wound on his forehead.
Mr Thorburn said: “After the incident, Mr Smith left his cousin’s property and got into his car. He drove only a short distance before crashing it.”
Defence agent John McLeod said Smith was “shell shocked” when he drove away from the house.
“To this day, he cannot explain why he did what he did,” he said.
Sheriff Andrew Miller disqualified Smith for 18 months, although he will be able to get his licence back earlier if he passes a driver rehabilitation course.
