JUSTICE? I LIVE WITH TRAUMA ... I SU FFER EVERY DAY
Victim hits out at two-year jail term
A Dunblane thug who left a man unconscious on a railway bridge with injuries that required three metal plates in his head was this week caged for two years.
Dylan Brownlee, of Bogside, had admitted assaulting Keith Mercer at Dunblane railway station on March 10 last year. Forty-five-year-old
Mr Mercer’s head was split and a cheekbone broken.
Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told 21-year-old dad Brownlee kicking someone on the head could have fatal consequences and it was fortunate for him he was not being sentenced at High Court level.
His 19-year-old brother Robert, of Springburn Gardens, Dunblane, had also been charged with the attack on Mr Mercer.
However, his not guilty plea had been accepted by the Crown.
Mr Mercer – who has been left badly physically, mentally and psychologically impaired by the attack, and still has to attend hospital appointments – said this week:“I’m disappointed by the result.
“I have gone through a year of pain and anguish.
“I still suffer and cannot understand how the justice system can make a deal like this. I live with this trauma every day.”
His studies for an HND in visual communication at Forth Valley College had to be curtailed following the attack, which took place in broad daylight.
Surgeons implanted three metal plates and multiple stitches to his head.
He explained:“I now suffer from extreme sensitivity to hot and cold, blinding headaches and numbness and pain from lip to forehead. One side of my face is a different shape to the other and I suffer from double vision. I’m scared to go out on my own or talk to strangers and rely on lifts everywhere. Otherwise I would not go out. I no longer participate in sports as I have no confidence.”
Mr Mercer pointed out he had been looking after a friend’s four-year-old daughter at the time of the attack which, he said, the little girl had witnessed. There had been“an ongoing situation”between the Brownlees and the girl’s family. He had tried to speak to Dylan Brownlee’s girlfriend to defuse the situation at a supermarket a few minutes before the attack. Up until that point he had not met the brothers, he said.
Brownlee’s agent Frazer McCready told Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday the accused had received reports of“an incident”outside Tesco in Dunblane involving Mr Mercer and Mr Brownlee’s girlfriend who was described as “hysterical.”
The accused’s baby daughter was also present at the time. The Brownlee brothers had arrived in a car driven by their mother.
He acknowledged his client had two convictions for violence. The first one contained three charges committed while Brownlee was aged 16. However, he was subsequently admonished. The second involved a 2015 incident for which he was later convicted and given a community payback order with supervision and unpaid work. Mr McCready told Sheriff Roberston Brownlee was “extremely remorseful”for his actions. He had made“a great deal of progress”while on supervision and had matured, he said. Brownlee had also “taken on board”that he was a young father and engaged with the parenting organisation Mellow Dads as he had difficulty with anger management.