A man who jumped on a woman and bit her “like a wolf” has admitted assault.
Mark Stewart changed his plea to guilty after hearing the prosecution case.
His victim told the court that she thought she was “going to die” in the March 2019 attack when he pounced on her at a friend’s home following a night of drinking.
A previous hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court heard how the pair of former friends had spent a weekend together with a third friend at an address in the Highland capital.
But in the early hours of March 18, Stewart suddenly turned on the woman, jumping on her and biting her neck.
Under questioning from fiscal depute Emma MacEwan, and with the aid of a sign language interpreter, his victim explained that she and Stewart had been in a spare bedroom at a friend’s house.
She said the accused began to look as if he was having a fit, causing her concern as she was aware he had a cochlear implant, which might be damaged if he hit his head.
She told the court: “The next thing, he rolled on the floor and jumped up and started biting my neck and I thought I was going to die and my eyes rolled back in my head.”
She said Stewart’s demeanour during the attack had been “really angry”.
‘He bit both sides of my neck’
She added: “It was similar to a wolf, it was like a wolf attacking.”
Under cross-examination from defence counsel Willie Young, the witness rejected a suggestion that the biting had happened as she was holding him down while Stewart was having a fit.
She said: “No it was just after it when he rolled on the floor then jumped up and bit my neck.
“He jumped up, bit both sides of my neck and I thought I was going to die.”
On the second day of evidence the friend who was hosting the pair said she had retired to bed leaving Stewart, who had been drinking “too fast”, and the woman alone.
Witness heard screaming and saw bite mark
She said she heard her friend screaming and moments later the victim ran crying into her room with a bite mark, complete with teeth imprints, on her neck.
Mr Young declined to question the second witness.
His client then pled guilty to a single charge of assault to injury by biting the woman on the body.
Mr Young told the court that his client was unable to recall what had happened on that evening, adding: “Having had the opportunity to hear the evidence he accepts responsibility to the extent now libelled and he offers his apologies.”
Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood ordered Stewart to pay his victim £300 in compensation.
