Two deny separate attacks on same man

Jan 29 2009 by Alastair McNeill, Hamilton Advertiser

A MAN was the victim of two serious assaults within two hours, a court was told this week told.

A jury at Hamilton Sheriff Court was told Alex Reid was hit on the head with a bottle at town pub Hemingways.

Reid was later attacked a second time, in Hamilton’s Meikle Earnock Road.

Robert Clark (28) denied assaulting Alex Reid to his injury and permanent disfigurement and 48-year-old Richard Hart pleaded not guilty to assaulting him to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement and danger of his life.

Clark in his special defence claimed that Alex Reid had attacked him and he was acting in self-defence, and Hart lodged a notice of incrimination claiming others had carried out the assault.

Giving evidence on the first day of proceedings, constable Martin Callan told the court he arrived at Hemingways pub at the Bottom Cross in Hamilton at about 11.55pm on March 23 last year. The officer was in a police car with colleague Christopher Forbes.

He found Alex Reid - who was with his girlfriend Jeanette Gilroy and sister Natalie McDermott - inside the bar, suffering from a cut to his head.

The officer tried to take a statement from him, but it wasn’t thorough as Alex Reid “wasn’t very coherent due to his injuries.”

An ambulance arrived but, said constable Callan, Alex Reid did not wish to be treated in hospital and walked to a taxi rank with Ms Gilroy and Ms McDermott.

However, instead of waiting for a taxi they flagged down the police car, occupied by constables Callan and Forbes, who took them back to Alex Reid’s home in Meikle Earnock Road.

They were dropped off there at about 12.30am and the officers left the scene.

However, the policemen went to Alex Reid’s home again 40 minutes later to re-interview him.

Asked by fiscal-depute Gillian Bradshaw to describe the scene constable Callan found there, the officer said: “A taxi was outside. Jeanette Gilroy was outside pointing to another taxi which was just leaving.”

The officers followed the departing taxi in their vehicle on to Neilsland Road, and after switching on klaxons and flashing lights it stopped there.

Constable Callan approached the driver’s side of the taxi and spoke to driver Alison Paterson.

Richard Hart was sitting in the passenger seat, he said, and his daughter Lisa Jane Hart was in the back seat.

The officer asked the occupants if anything had occurred at the Meikle Earnock Road address and Alison Paterson replied “yes.”

An inquiry via the police national computer revealed that Hart was the owner of the taxi. The vehicle was searched and a kitchen knife with a seven-inch blade was found underneath the front passenger seat.

Constable Callan told the court Hart had told him that he had gone to see Alex Reid but he was not at home.

Asked by the officer why he had gone there, Hart replied: ‘He was banging on my daughter’s door and he phoned me. He’s a junkie, drug-dealing bampot and I’m going to do him in. I’m going to kill the b*******.’

Hart was then taken to Hamilton Police Office where he was detained.

Constable Callan also told the court that at about 6am that morning he was also involved in cautioning Clark, of Kirk Street, Motherwell.

He said that a colleague charged Clark with smashing a bottle over Alex Reid’s head in Hemingway’s toilets. Clark’s reply was: ‘It wasn’t me that did it.’

The trial before Sheriff Joyce Powrie was continuing yesterday as the Advertiser went to press.