Cleared of murder bid rap

A man was cleared yesterday of attempting to murder someone in a Paisley flat after a row over a mobile phone.

Stuart Dickson, 29, was acquitted of repeatedly stabbing Alexander Fraser on July 6 last year.

Jurors returned a not proven verdict at the High Court in Glasgow after a trial.

The court heard Dickson went to Fraser’s flat at Todholm Terrace for drugs and stabbed him three times, on the hand, leg and stomach.

But he denied the allegation and blamed another man, Christopher White, for carrying out the attack.

It was heard that, before the incident, Dickson sold Fraser a phone that he believed to be an iPhone and in fact was a Samsung, and Fraser complained to Dickson about this.

Fraser believed the attack might have been because of his complaint.

In 2011, Dickson was jailed for seven years for setting his then partner Ashleigh Fogg alight.

He pleaded guilty at the High Court to assaulting her to her permanent disfigurement and danger of life.

Days after being caged for his crime he phoned her from jail and told her “I love you”.

They met through a friend and had been dating for five months before the attack.

The court heard that during a row, Dickson poured the fuel on to Ms Fogg’s pyjama bottoms and then set them on fire using a lighter.

As the flames spread and she desperately tried to beat them out, Dickson poured more petrol on her.

In evidence Ms Fogg told how seconds earlier she pleaded with Dickson and begged him not to harm her.

She said: “He poured the petrol on my legs and leaned over and lit it with a lighter.

“I went on fire and started screaming for help.”

Ms Fogg told the court that she managed to pull off the burning pyjama bottoms and ran into the bathroom and put cold towels on her legs.

She added: “I was in absolute agony. When I put water on my legs I went into shock and started shaking.”

Ms Fogg said that she has been left with scarring on her thighs and was now too embarrassed to take her young child swimming.