Bar fighter airlifted to hospital after brawl

An Ardrishaig barman was provoked by two customers, in an Islay hotel, before he rendered one of them unconscious and stamped on his head. Blair MacDonald Johnston, 41, of 9 Brae Road, Ardrishaig, Lochgilphead, was attacked behind the Islay bar on November 8 last year. Last Thursday, a Campbeltown sheriff was shown a CCTV film of the incident and a subsequent fight which led to a customer being helicoptered to hospital in Glasgow, with multiple fractures and a bleed on the brain. Johnston, who formerly leased Lochgilphead’s Argyll Hotel, appeared on indictment and pleaded guilty, under provocation, to a charge of assault, severe injury and permanently disfiguring one of two men. He pleaded guilty to a further charge, also under provocation, of assaulting a second man, knocking him to the ground and repeatedly punching him. The court was told the two men had been working for Spie Alarms servicing the system at an Islay police station. They had come into the hotel bar at 8pm and continued drinking till 2am. The man who was rendered unconscious said in a statement that he had no recall of the earlier part of the evening until he woke up in hospital. The silent CCTV film opened with all three men talking at the bar in the early hours. Johnston returned behind the bar to be followed by one man who knocked him to the floor. The other man also went behind the bar and attacked Johnston. After some moments calm was restored and all three were seen talking by the bar. After about six minutes the two men, led by Johnston, were seen to leave the bar by a door leading to the hotel foyer. A scuffle erupts and they return fighting into the bar. Johnston lays one man flat and stamps on his forehead before fighting the other man. Eventually the two men stumble outside where one collapsed in the street and the other dialled 999. He was seen by a consultant at 8.50am in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital where it was established, through a CT scan, that, although there was no danger to his life, he had significant injuries including fractures to his cheekbone and eye-socket. He had double vision and his driving licence was revoked because of the period in which he was unconscious. Sheriff Patrick Hughes said: ‘This is an extremely serious matter, as you are a first offender, there is a requirement by law to order reports.’ Sheriff Hughes deferred sentence for two months and added that one possible sentence would be custody.