Five years for thug who stabbed man as he walked through park

A KNIFE thug who taunted a dog walker saying ‘Do you want stabbed’ seconds before plunging a blade into him three times was locked up yesterday.

George Stewart chased Robert Preston through a park then attacked him.

Minutes earlier, Stewart, 20, had shouted at 53-year-old Mr Preston: ‘What are you looking at, you baldy b ***** d?’

Mr Preston tried to run away as bare-chested Stewart came towards him with the knife.

But he fell and was stabbed three times, with the knife puncturing his right lung.

Yesterday Stewart was locked up for five years and four months.

Prosecutor Jane Farquharson said the thug was ‘hysterical and ranting’ during the attack in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, on August 5.

She added: ‘He told Mr Preston he wanted to stab him in the mouth. He cut him on the mouth while shouting “stab”. He stabbed Mr Preston on the body before walking away.’

Earlier that day, in Arbroath, Angus, Stewart intimidated a couple who were walking home. He approached Reece Walters and Tanya Nicoll in the town, pulled out a knife and threatened to stab them.

He ran off when a friend of the couple stopped her car to see what was happening.

Stewart, who is detained in Polmont Young Offenders Institution, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and a breach of the peace.

At the High Court in Glasgow judge Lord Summers told him the only possible sentence was a custodial one.