Thug jailed for attacking man who chatted up his girlfriend in Aberdeen nightclub

A drunken thug who assaulted a man and left him scarred for chatting up his girlfriend has been jailed.

Josh Cox, 27, “lost his temper” and punched the man in Atik nightclub in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

And after assaulting the man, who was of Pakistani origin, Cox went on to make a number of racist remarks towards him.

Depute fiscal Karen Dow told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that at around 1.30am the man had approached a female to speak about how their night was going.

She said: “The accused approached the complainer and stated ‘don’t speak to my girl’ and proceeded to punch him to the face.

“The complainer fell to the floor and did not fight back.”

While on the floor Cox shouted racial slurs at him.

Door staff also spotted Cox outside where he shouted, swore, made threats and used racial language.

The man was taken to a first aid room by staff before being taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary by police where a 2cm cut to his left eye was cleaned and stitched, leaving a permanent scar.

The full incident was captured on the nightclub’s CCTV.

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Cox, whose address was given as Greentrees Gardens in Inverurie, pled guilty to assault to injury and permanent disfigurement and also acting in a threatening or abusive manner.

Both charges were racially aggravated.

Defence agent Graham Morrison said: “In amongst all that your lordship heard the mitigation, which was ‘that’s my girl’ or something along those lines.

“This was Hogmanay, he’d obviously been drinking a lot by this time.

“He’d left his girlfriend at some point and went to the bar, looked over and saw her being approached by the complainer who was just chatting to her.

“When he looked back the complainer was much closer to her, leaning in and chatting her up.

“He went across and she looked very uncomfortable and he lost his temper.”

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank jailed Cox for seven months.