Man gets eight years for fatal hammer attack

Drug dealer killed man in brutal punishment beating over £200 debt

A convicted drug trafficker who killed a man in a hammer attack was jailed for eight years yesterday.

William Richardson turned up at a house in Kelty and went into a bedroom where Colin Oliphant had been resting and repeatedly assaulted the victim who sustained 39 injuries.

A judge told Richardson at the High Court in Edinburgh: “This was a savage assault with a weapon. It resulted in another man’s death. His young daughter has lost her father.”

The judge added that he accepted that Richardson had expressed “genuine remorse” over the offence which arose over a £200 drug debt.

Lord Woolman told the killer that he would have jailed him for 12 years for the crime, but for the guilty plea.

During the fatal attack other people in the house heard Mr Oliphant say: “Sorry Willie, don’t hit me, stop it Willie. What are you doing with that .... dinnae, dinnae.”

Richardson, who was jailed for heroin supply in 2013, drove off from the house with others and was described as acting “full of bravado”, the court heard.

Advocate depute Bill McVicar earlier told the court: “The now deceased quickly began to struggle to breathe with his face swelling and asking for help, pointing to his neck.”

An ambulance was called but the attack victim’s face and throat continued to swell .

Mr Oliphant, 38, went into cardiac arrest and despite efforts to save him he died. The cause of death was later given as complications of chest trauma.

The prosecutor said the fatal injury inflicted on Mr Oliphant, the father of a daughter, was a fracture of a rib on the left side of his back which had splintered bone and punctured a lung.

Richardson, 35, formerly of Glasgow, was originally charged with murdering Mr Oliphant in the attack at Keltyhill Avenue on September 6 last year.

But the Crown earlier accepted his guilty plea to a reduced charge of culpable homicide. He admitted repeatedly punching the victim on the head and body and repeatedly striking him on the body with a weapon and killing him.

Defence counsel Donald Findlay QC told the court that Richardson had handed himself in at Dunfermline Police Station “clearly distressed” after discovering that Mr Oliphant had died.

He said Richardson had accepted his responsibility “almost from the outset”.

Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Inspector Stuart Alexander of Police Scotland’s major investigation team said: “Richardson has admitted that his actions caused Colin’s death and I hope that this, alongside the sentence, can help Colin’s loved ones to move forward with their lives.”