A man has told a court he did not know if he was “alive or dead” after passing out during an alleged armed robbery at his home.
Slessor Buchan and Scott Fowler are on trial at the High Court in Aberdeen, accused of carrying out an armed robbery at Colin Verral’s home in Fraserburgh earlier this year.
The duo are accused of demanding drugs and money, pointing a gun into Mr Verral’s face, shooting it into the ceiling, kneeing him and taking money and an iPhone, while acting with others.
Yesterday, Mr Verral described one man wearing an orange mask and another wearing a black and blue mask barging into his home in Gray Street.
He told the jury the one in the orange pointed the gun in his face, before the two men took his trousers off and took a wallet out while a woman counted money.
Mr Verral told the court that the gun was then fired at the ceiling.
“I think I blanked out,” he said.
“I was not sure if I was alive or dead.”
Asked if the gun had come into contact with him during the incident, Mr Verral replied: “Yes it touched my face, the front of it, the bottom of the barrel.”
He was asked if would recognise either of the masked men again, but said he would not – though indicated, when asked, that Fowler resembled the man in the orange mask and Buchan the one in the black and blue mask.
Mr Verral added: “They didn’t really say much. I could see he was laughing by his eyes, all I could see was his eyes.”
Advocate depute Keith O’Mahony then asked if he could him laughing, to which he replied: “It was more like a snigger.”
Representing Buchan, defence counsel Derick Nelson suggested Mr Verrel was confused about when the alleged incident took place.
The pair are accused of raiding his home on January 6, but Mr Nelson pointed to a statement Mr Verrel gave to the police which suggested it took place in the early hours of the following morning.
He replied: “I must have got confused.”
He went on to describe the incident as an “image” he would “never forget.”
Later in the day the court heard from Fowler’s wife Angie, who said he had bought two wrestling masks in the summer of 2016.
She was shown a Facebook picture from June that year of her husband and son wearing masks, matching the colours described by Mr Verral, and confirmed they were the ones he had bought.
Mr O’Mahony asked Ms Fowler what she remembered about January 5.
She said her husband left home at 9pm and was in bed when she woke up the following morning.
She added: “I think he said he was going to a friend’s house.”
Fowler, 39, and Buchan, 37, both deny the charges against them. The trial, before Lord Uist, continues.
