A man who beat a young joiner with an iron bar in a north town street has been found guilty by a jury of the attack.
Corey Barnetson confronted Ewan Macdonald in the early hours in Wick and repeatedly struck him.
He left him lying on the ground badly injured after telling him “don’t come back here again or you’ll get the same again.”
Mr Macdonald, 27, had come north to work on a Balfour Beattie contract, was so badly injured that he had to hold onto a wall as he struggled down Kennedy Terrace to get help. The assault left him with the limited use of his right arm and he subsequently lost his job.
Sheriff Andrew Berry told Barnetson was described in court as being “built like a tank – and towering above anyone else”
Barnetson, 21 and 6ft 4in and 20st, denied the assault on indictment and entered a special defence of alibit.
However, it took the jury at Wick, less than an hour return their majority verdict.
The incident occurred on July 26. Mr Macdonald had been out in the town socialising and was invited back to her house by a woman he met.
When he left in the early hours of the following morning he was confronted by Barnetson. The assault alerted a woman trying to get to sleep in the upstairs bedroom of her house.
Kiera Macleod went to the window and saw a person she identified as the accused striking a man with a metre-long iron bar.
Although the assailant was hooded, Miss Macleod said she was positive as she recognised Barnetson by his exceptional height and build.
Barnetson, of Kinnaird Street, Wick, said he had gone to his father’s house in Oldwick Road shortly before 11pm the previous night and stayed the night there.
Barnetson will be sentenced on March 17.
