Hooligans spared jail over horror attack on teen football fan in shocking video shared online
TWO football thugs who left a teenage rival fan battered and traumatised following a mob attack, have avoided jail.
That is despite a sheriff saying they deserved to be behind bars for the vicious gang assault on a Kieren Ross, breaking both his hearing aids.
The shocking incident took place following a Fife derby match at Dunfermline’s East End Park against Raith Rovers.
The youth was knocked to the ground by a group and then repeatedly punched and kicked in an incident captured on a mobile phone and posted online.
Callum Beautyman, 18, and Mackenzie King, 21, were part of the gang of Dunfermline fans who attacked the 18-year-old Raith supporter.
When the pair appeared for sentencing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, Sheriff Susan Duff read from the victim’s impact statement.
In it, he told how he had suffered nightmares and panic attacks since the violence.
He said he was now scared of the dark as, when he falls asleep he hears the voices of his attackers.
He did not attend his school exams days after the assault and he turned down an apprenticeship as it would mean going to college in Dunfermline.
The victim wrote, “I genuinely believe they wanted to kill me.”
He added, “I don’t think I’ll ever be the happy and carefree boy I was.”
The pair previously admitted that at a bus stop in Halbeath Road, Dunfermline, they assaulted a youth, aged 17, whilst acting with others on January 2 last year.
They repeatedly punched and kicked him on the head and body, seized him and threw him to the ground, repeatedly punched and kicked him on the head and body when he was on the ground, then seized and kicked him as he was attempting to leave, all to his injury.
After reading from the impact statement, Sheriff Duff told the thugs, “You should both hang your heads in shame.”
She said it was only because of their young age that they would not receive the custodial sentence they “deserved”.
Instead, she put Beautyman on a restriction of liberty order for eight months.
King was put on a community payback order with 240 hours of unpaid work.
Both of them were made subject to football banning orders for three years.