ACID ATTACK THUG JAILED FOR 10 YEARS
Career criminal targeted journalist at home
AIR strikes on a Syrian town left nine people dead and about 50 wounded yesterday.
Traumatised children, covered in blood, queued for treatment at a makeshift hospital in opposition-held Arbin, near the capital Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes were to blame for the first civilian casualties since a Russian-backed truce in the area came into effect on Saturday.
A civil defence humanitarian service who operate in the area said the dead included five children and two women.
Russia claimed there were no air strikes.
They said they had delivered 10 tons of food and medical supplies and evacuated sick and injured civilians.
Shelling was reported near the Russian embassy in Damascus, the first time rebels had hit government-held areas in the centre of the city since the ceasefire began. A BRUTAL attacker who threw acid in a journalist’s face was yesterday jailed for 10 years.
William Burns, 56, disguised himself a postman to assault Russell Findlay on the doorstep of his home.
The thug was told he will be supervised for five years after his release from prison.
Judge Lord Matthews branded it a “vicious, premeditated attack” and described Burns as “a dangerous man”.
The court had heard how Burns threw sulphuric acid on the crime reporter’s face before knocking him to the ground and attacking him.
But the former Sunday Mail journalist fought back as his terrified young daughter ran to a neighbour’s home for help on December 23, 2015.
Buckets of water were thrown over the victim’s face, which diluted the effects of the acid.
Burns denied the charge but was found guilty of assaulting the journalist to the danger of his life following a trial in Glasgow last month.
He had said he went to the house to beat up the journalist.
The career criminal claimed Russell had told him he had a compromising photo of him with a young blonde woman.
Sentencing Burns at the High Court in Aberdeen, Lord Matthews said: “You have been convicted of a vicious, premeditated attack by the throwing of sulphuric acid into the face of a journalist on the threshold of his own home two days before Christmas.
“You were caught virtually redhanded and your own evidence was an obvious fabrication from start to finish. Leaving aside your own explanation, the only reason I can discern for your actions is that you objected to something that your victim wrote.
“There are ways and means of dealing with grievances, real or imagined, against the media and this was plainly not one of them.
“The freedom of the press is an essential tool in the armoury of any democracy and attacks of this nature will not be tolerated.
“You have a bad record and are clearly a dangerous man.”
At an earlier hearing, it was revealed Burns had an extensive criminal record. He was jailed for 15 years in 2001 after gunning down a woman during a post office robbery in Linwood, Renfrewshire.
In 1996, Burns was sentenced to six years for threatening a security guard with a gun after he stole a cake from a Marks and Spencer store in Paisley.
He has also been convicted of assault, firearms charges and carrying offensive weapons.
Burns went on trial with Alexander Porter, 48, who was accused of the same charge against the journalist. The case against Porter was not proven.
You have a bad record and are a dangerous man LORD MATTHEWS