A Scots thug who choked his girlfriend with her scarf, banged her head against doors and dragged her screaming along the floor escaped prison today.
Instead brutal drunk Daniel McNair was hit with a two-year community payback order compelling him to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work within 12 months.
He was also handed a six month restriction of liberty order confining him to his home in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear from 9pm to 6am each day.
A sheriff told him the 9pm start to his electronic tagging was so that he could continue to attend evening meetings to address the problem he had with turning violent when drunk.
During McNair’s trial at Livingston Sheriff Court the jury heard that he strangled former girlfriend Sharell Blair with her own scarf and dragged her screaming along the floor of her hallway, giving her carpet burns on her elbows.
He also repeatedly punched her on the head and body and banged her head off the wall and floor during the terrifying assault.
A neighbour who had heard her screaming: “Get off me!” knocked on the door and interrupted the assault, the jury was told.
The neighbour said he called the police after McNair opened the door wide enough to allow him to see Miss Blair distressed and crying on the floor.
McNair, 35, had denied assaulting Miss Blair to the danger of her life at her home in Whitburn, West Lothian, on 15 November 2019, but after a trial at Livingston Sheriff Court a jury took less than two hours to find him guilty of assaulting her to her injury.
Giving evidence in his own defence, he claimed he had gone back to her home in Bathgate with food from a local chip shop to find her drinking cider and acting angrily and aggressively towards him.
He claimed she threatened him with a large kitchen knife, claiming: “I just wanted to leave. Alarm bells were ringing. I didn’t feel safe.”
He said she pushed him back into the kitchen but he “barged past her” and she grabbed hold of his arm as she fell backwards. He claimed he stumbled onto her and she hit her head off a wall and landed on the floor.
He said he couldn’t remember whether she had a scarf, although a police officer who was first on the scene confirmed she was wearing one.
McNair said the reason for him running away from her home before police arrived was that he had “panicked”. The jury rejected his story and convicted him.
Paul Haran, defending, said that his client was now addressing the “alcohol issues” in his life and had no objection to the court imposing a non-harassment order banning him from contacting his former partner.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Susan Craig told McNair: “Clearly alcohol is a major issue in your life. On a previous occasion when you were convicted of assault to injury there was a requirement that you complied with an alcohol treatment order but that clearly wasn’t successful over the longer term.
“I heard the evidence and I heard from the complainer how she was affected by this assault on her. However, the jury made quite a number of deletions from the charge so that the matter you were ultimately convicted of was a lesser matter.
“You are very much over the threshold for custody, so please understand if this order comes back because of breaches, the level of custody still applies.”
She placed him under social work supervision for two years and told him the non-harassment order banning him from contacting Miss Blair would remain in force for five years.
