Student trapped in cubicle in toilet attack

Published on Monday 17 November 2008 09:17

A STUDENT was trapped in a toilet cubicle and repeatedly punched in the face during a random attack in a pub, a court has heard.

Edinburgh University student Thomas Utley was out celebrating handing in his final year dissertation with friends when he was attacked.

He was walking into the gents toilet at the Pear Tree pub when Wayne Coyle stopped him and said: "Are you calling me a mug?"

Coyle, 23, then punched the student twice in the face, saying: "Do you know who I am? I'm from Niddrie".

Mr Utley apologised but Coyle grabbed him by the hair and tried to hit his head against a wall before blocking him as he tried to leave.

Mr Utley locked himself in a toilet cubicle to escape the attack, but Coyle climbed up and leaned over the top of the cubicle. He punched his victim again in the head, shouting "Do you know who I am?", before walking out.

The student reported the attack to bar staff, who found the whole incident had been captured on CCTV.

Mr Utley, from London, suffered soreness to his face and head but had escaped serious injury, said fiscal depute Graham Fraser, prosecuting.

"This must have been a very frightening incident for him because he had nowhere to go," said Mr Fraser.

"He apologised even though he had nothing to apologise for," he added.

Coyle was arrested and told police he had been out drinking with his brother who had just been released from prison that day, and said he had got into an argument in the toilets with "some dafty".

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, Coyle admitted assaulting Mr Utley at the bar in West Nicholson Street on March 3 and was jailed for four and a half months.

Coyle, of Niddrie Marischal Green, Edinburgh, had been due to be released from another sentence on December 23.

Solicitor Cameron Tait, defending, said Coyle's girlfriend had left him shortly before the incident and taken their four-year-old daughter with her.

He had been drinking heavily with his brother in the bar before the incident.

"He had had far too much to drink and has very little recollection of what has taken place," said Mr Tait.

Sheriff Graeme Warner said he had reduced the sentence from six months because Coyle had pleaded guilty.