Brothers locked up for assault on cousin

TWO brothers who smashed their cousin's face with a golf club were jailed yesterday, after their victim asked a judge to consider a soft sentence.

Richard, 19, and Hugh Mullen, 27 - who was only 14 when he first appeared in the High Court - had been found guilty of attempted murder, but when they appeared for sentence, judge Lord Kinclaven revealed he had received a letter from Daniel Crowe.

Sentencing Hugh, who also robbed Mr Crowe of a ring, to eight years in prison and Richard to six years' detention, the judge said he had "exercised as much leniency as is consistent with my public duty".

Richard Mullen, who earned his "Superned" nickname after almost 50 court appearances in a year, had been banned by Perth Sheriff Lindsay Foulis from contact with his crime-clan family in the hope of improving his behaviour.

The ban had been relaxed by March 13 last year, when the brothers launched their attack in Myrtle Park, Blairgowrie.

Mr Crowe, 23, told the trial he had been drinking with friends when he answered a knock on the door and was immediately struck by the Mullen brothers.

He said surgeons had to take bone from his skull to rebuild his shattered cheek. He will be scarred for life, the court heard.

At the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, defence QC Jock Thomson referred to Hugh Mullen's record, going back to his appearance in the dock at 14.

Hugh Mullen's record also includes a three-and-a-half-year sentence in July 2004 for beating up a one-legged French Foreign Legion veteran, who was later found dead in his Blairgowrie home.

Lord Kinclaven said, because the brothers represented a danger to the public, he would make an order extending the period spent on licence after their release - for three years in the case of Hugh Mullen, of Emma Street, and two years for his brother, of Harriet Row, both Blairgowrie.