A SAUCHIE man has been locked up for three years after knifing his neighbour in the chest over a Hogmanay noise complaint.

Greig Sharp had been complaining to Clackmannanshire Council for more than two years about "constant noise" from the nearby flat on Schawpark Avenue.

He finally snapped on new year's eve after the complainer, his girlfriend, and his 12-year-old sister decided to go out for a drive-through takeaway at 2.10am – after playing music for more than four hours.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told that as came trooped down the common stair, Sharp, 26, grabbed a knife from his kitchen and went outside, shouting: "What's all the noise about?".

Then when the complainer approached – saying he didn't want a screaming match in the street – Sharp attacked him with the blade.

Depute fiscal Adrian Fraser said the accused had stood on the disabled access ramp to the flat he shared with his diabetic dad, which gave him extra height, and plunged the blade into the victim's chest.

He later told police he had "wanted to kill him for the longest time".

Mr Fraser said: "[The complainer] said that he didn't know he had been stabbed at first but put his hand to his chest and felt the blood."

He then went to his car and told his girlfriend he had sliced open by Sharp and asked her to take him to hospital.

She drove him straight to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital, 13 miles away, where doctors found a single bleeding wound in his chest wall.

On Wednesday, July 5, Stirling Sheriff Court heard that, luckily, it was not life-threatening.

After the attack Sharp woke his dad and told him: "I've stabbed Wullie".

He then went to the kitchen sink and calmly washed the blood off the blade.

Last week, the Crown prosecutor said when police, alerted by the victim's girlfriend, arrived at the common close they found Sharp's garden gate and the disabled access ramp stained with blood.

Sharp was arrested and told officers he had been in his bedroom on his computer with his headphones on when the noise from the flat upstairs became so loud he thought his neighbours were having a party.

He told them: "I lost it. I lost the heid.

"It was just inevitable. If it hadn't been myself it would have been my father. For the last four days they've been playing loud music."

He added that he had got the knife from the kitchen "on impulse" and hid it up his sleeve before going out to confront the complainer.

Sharp, who moved to Harris Court, Alloa, after the incident, pleaded guilty to assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement in the early hours of December 31, 2016.

Nuala Devlin, defending, said Clackmannanshire Council had a record of noise complaints by the Sharp household about his neighbours household going back more than two years.

She said Sharp, a carer for his father with no previous convictions, had later described the stabbing as "surreal".

Imposing the three-year jail term, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told Sharp that no sentence other than a custodial sentence was appropriate in view of the "very serious offence".

He also imposed a 12 month post-release supervision order, which he said was necessary to protect the public from serious harm.

He said one of the factors in his decision to impose post-release supervision was Sharp's reply to the police question "Did you want to kill him?" which was "Yes, for the longest time".

Sharp showed no emotion as he was handcuffed and led to the cells.