Celebrity trainer who punched woman in mouth escapes prison
A WOMAN who was left lying unconscious in a pool of her own blood after being attacked by a celebrity personal trainer has slammed the sentence he received.
Michael Heatlie, who has worked with stars including singer Gwen Stefani, was forced to pay Fiona McCartney £7,660 and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.
He launched a violent attack on the 43-year- old outside a nightclub in Edinburgh last year because she would not give him a cigarette and was sentenced yesterday at the city’s sheriff court.
But Miss McCartney, who also lost a tooth in the attack and faces months of dental work, claimed Heatlie, 42, should have been jailed and said that his sentence was ‘ sending out the wrong message’.
During sentencing, Sheriff Gordon Liddle told Heatlie his attack on Miss McCartney had been completely unprovoked and had come out of the blue.
He s ai d t hat t he expensive cosmetic dental treatment now required by his victim would still not restore her to how she had been before the attack. While a social work report compiled by the courts said there was little chance of Heatlie, f r om Edinburgh, carrying out a similar attack, Sheriff Liddle added: ‘This is a wake-up call to what you are capable of if you get into this situation again.’
But last night Miss McCartney said: ‘I’m still taking it in. I didn’t know what to expect but I’m happy that he has been ordered to pay me that amount of compensation because it means I can finally move on and get my dental work done.
‘A 100 hours community service is not really sending out the right message that he can go out and randomly attack people in the street and j ust get away with paying compensation.
‘He’ll be able to move on from it, but I have still got many months of dental work ahead, probably up to a year. So I am still a very l ong way from moving on from the result.
‘ I do t hink a custodial sentence perhaps might have been more suitable as well as a compensation order. The main thing for me is that I have suffered ten months with the damage that he has done.
‘All I want to do is really move on. It’s been a very stressful ten months hanging over me.’
Last month, Heatlie admitted assaulting Miss McCartney outside The Jam House in Edinburgh’s Queen Street on June 29, 2014.
The court had previously heard that legal worker Miss McCartney and her friend had been standing outside the premises in the early hours when Heatlie approached them and asked for a cigarette.
When told they did not have any, he repeatedly punched Miss McCartney in the face. He then ran off but was caught by a group of people who had witnessed the assault.
Sheriff Liddle i mposed a community payback order of 100 hours’ unpaid work under supervision to be carried out within six months.
Miss McCartney’s cosmetic surgery was going to cost £7,660, he said, and he was making a compensation order for that amount to be paid within the same period.
Heatlie was once voted one of Edinburgh’s most eligible bachelors and claims to have helped train Miss Stefani before her 2009 US tour.
At the time, the No Doubt singer described him as ‘Superman’.
Def en c e solicitor Jim Stephenson told Sheriff Liddle that his client had pleaded guilty at an early stage to save Miss McCartney having to go to court.
Mr Stephenson added: ‘ He has accepted full responsibility for this and is horrified as to how he got himself into this situation.
‘He is a man of 42 years of age and has never been in trouble before.
‘He does not normally drink to excess, but he had been drinking to excess that night, although that is no excuse.
‘He is at a total loss to explain his behaviour that night.’
Mr Stephenson told the Sheriff that Heatlie could ‘come up with £5,000 in a few weeks’ and that this could be used as compensation to Miss McCartney, which would help get the remedial work on her teeth done more quickly.
‘Sending out the wrong message’
‘Drinking to excess that night’