A pensioner who stabbed his friend in the neck after a day spent drinking cider and whisky originally denied the attack and hid the knife in his welly boot.
Former gamekeeper Duncan Mackenzie had phoned his pal to get him a bottle of whisky while he was at the local shop before inviting him into his Gairloch home to share the spirit alongside some tins of cider.
The friends shared drinks in Mackenzie’s one-bed council home throughout the afternoon and well into the evening of January 25 this year.
But things turned sour around midnight when a heated exchange of words between the pair ended in Mackenzie, 71, stabbing his pal.
‘You won’t do it, you are all mouth’
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told Inverness Sheriff Court: “During the altercation, Mackenzie made his way through to his bedroom before returning with a ‘Commando’ style knife. He then put the knife to (his friend’s) throat. (His friend) said: ‘You won’t do it, you are all mouth, you.’
“At this point, Mackenzie stabbed him once to the front centre of his neck.”
His friend had to call for his own ambulance while Mackenzie advised him to happy pressure on the wound to stem the bleeding.
Mr Weir said that an ambulance arrived about 12.30 am where the crew found the victim conscious and holding a heavily bloodstained towel to his neck.
Knife was found hidden in a welly boot
When police arrived at Mackenzie’s house, Mackenzie claimed that his pal had arrived injured at his door.
But police saw blood on the carpet and Mackenzie was arrested. The knife was found hidden in a wellington boot.
Mackenzie’s friend sustained a 2cm-wide wound but it did not require stitching, although a vein had been cut.
Mackenzie, of Gairloch’s Burnside Terrace, admitted assault to injury and danger of life.
Sentencing
Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald deferred sentencing for background reports until August 2, when defence solicitor Duncan Henderson will give a plea in mitigation to the offence.
Mackenzie’s bail was continued.
