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Nwicker60
14-Oct-16, 17:24
Eight-month term for 'savage' assault


A MAN, who burst into a couple's home and set about them with a table leg, was today jailed by a sheriff for a year.

The victims, Nadia Devine, 26, and a 16-year-old youth, who cannot be name for legal reasons, were in bed when Alexander "Poodles" Macalpine paid them an unwelcome visit at their home in Wick, on October 28, last year.

The attack, during which Macalpine repeatedly swung the wooden weapon, left Ms Devine, a former girlfriend of the accused, and her boyfriend battered and bruised and requiring medical treatment in hospital, Wick Sheriff Court was told.

Macalpine, 27, denied charges of assault and abusive behaviour, but was found guilty after a trial, last month and remanded, pending the preparation of a background report. He entered a special plea of alibi which was strongly defended by his then girlfriend, Shauna Cassidy, but she subsequently changed her story and revealed that the accused had not been with her at the time. Macalpine conceded in evidence that he was "not happy" with Ms Devine after she started a relationship with the 16-year-old

Reliving the morning of the attack, Ms Davine said she was lying on the bed at her home in Cairndhuna Terrace, Wick, with her boyfriend, when Macalpine burst in..

Ms Devine, who sustained a suspected ankle fracture and was badly bruised - she was on crutches for a month - told the court: "I was in so much pain and was screaming for him to stop but he just said -"Take it, you ...take it".

The 16-year-old victim demonstrated how Macalpine was swinging the table leg above his head and bring it down "with brute force". The teenager added: "He hit me twice over the head. I had a gash on the top of my head and my whole body was sore. There was a lot of blood."

The youth said he got off the bed and managed to pin Macalpine against the wall. Following a struggle, the accused ran from the house.

Sentencing Malcalpine, of 30 Battery Road, Wick, Sheriff Andrew Berry took him to task for not accepting responsibility for his actions and went on:"That is frankly absurd and insults the intelligence of anyone involved in the case. You simply do as you please. This was a savage attack for which there was no excuse whatsoever."

Sheriff Berry added the comment that his sentence was the maximum term he could impose at summary level but expressed surprise that Macalpine had not been prosecuted on indictment which carries much longer jail terms.

The prison term was backdated to September 30 when the accused was remanded and he was made subject to a non-harassment order preventing him from approaching or contacting Ms Devine and the 16-year-old youth for three years.