TWO thugs who tied a pal to a chair, beat him up, and then dumped him unconscious on his bed, left court laughing today (Thursday) after a sheriff granted them bail.

Mark McRae and Michael Cairns (both aged 23) attacked victim Scott Mitchell during a drinking session in Cairns’s Tillicoultry flat.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told that after an argument developed, they tied Mr Mitchell to a chair with tape, with his hands behind his back.

Prosecutor Dev Kapadia said when Mr Mitchell broke free, McRae punched him repeatedly on the head and body, rendering him unconscious.

Later, in the early hours of the morning, when he was still only half-conscious, they picked him up under the armpits and tried to take him back to his own home, several floors below Cairns’s flat in the same block, in Cairnton Place on 2 April last year.

Mr Kapadia said that as they tried to negotiate the common stair, they lost hold of him, and he fell, hitting his head on one of the steps.

They then picked him up and took him to his own flat and left him lying on his bed.

The depute fiscal said McRae and Cairns made no attempt to summon assistance for the injured Mr Mitchell.

He said, “The complainer was left only partially conscious, and unable to help himself.” The court heard that Mr Mitchell was found the following day by another friend, who knocked and entered his unlocked flat and found him lying on his bedroom floor. He had two black eyes, and blood on his nose and mouth. A GP was called, and he then called an ambulance.

Mr Mitchell was taken to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital and transferred to the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh after doctors diagnosed a blood clot on the brain. He underwent surgery to remove the clot, which, the court heard, was so large that it had moved his brain nearly a centimetre inside his skull. The court heard that he had since made what his doctor called “a remarkable recovery”.

Mr Kapadia said, “The Crown doesn’t seek to attribute the blood clot to the assault, but to striking his head on the stairs. Since the incident the complainer’s [pre-existing] epilepsy appears to have worsened, and he suffers from nightmares.” Cairns, a glassworks worker and father-of-two, formerly of Cairnton Place, now of Sauchie, and McRae, unemployed, of Alva, pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Mitchell to his severe injury by tying him to the chair and later attacking him, and to acting culpably and recklessly by taking him to his flat afterwards and leaving him there, knowing he was injured, not fully conscious, and unable to help himself or seek assistance.

The court heard both men had previous convictions for assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement. Cairns had a list of 34 previous convictions, also including disorder and culpable and reckless conduct.

Sheriff Kenneth McGowan deferred sentence on the two accused until 7 May for social background reports.

He granted bail, but told them, “You should both prepare yourselves, because a custodial sentence is highly likely.” The two thugs left court together, grinning, in an apparently celebratory mood, and McRae gesticulated.