Jailedfor striking barmaid withknife

A customer who struck a teenage barmaid with a knife during an incident with locals in an east Perthshire hotel was jailed for a total of 21 months recently.

Perth Sheriff Court was told that 35-year-old Matthew Kempton had been in Blairgowrie visiting his former partner.

But that hadn’t gone “particularly well” - and he started drinking.

He was later seen in Alyth’s Losset Inn where he put a blood-stained knife on the bar before being asked to leave.

But he then went to the nearby Alyth Hotel in Commercial Street where he became involved in an altercation with other drinkers.

Sheriff William Wood said that as a direct result of the ensuing trouble, 19-yearold Alice Doig, whom he described as “an innocent barmaid,” was struck on the body with the blade.

“Because of that, I see no alternative to a custodial sentence.”

Kempton admitted at a previous hearing that he struck the barmaid on the body with a knife to her injury in the hotel on February 15, 2015.

The indictment originally described her injuries as “severe” and that he had attacked her “to the danger of her life.”

But these words were deleted from the charge.

He also pled guilty to having a knife in his possession and failing to appear at an earlier court hearing in Perth on October 17, 2016, in breach of a bail order.

Sheriff Wood noted that Kempton has a previous conviction for a bottle assault which led to a previous spell behind bars.

The sentence was backdated to October 21, 2016, when he was first remanded.