Disgust at pub thug's 'ridiculous' sentence

A POSTMAN today told how he was "disgusted" that a man who battered him unconscious in a city pub for speaking to his wife received only 200 hours community service.

Stuart Millan was left with a fractured skull and broken ankle, which forced him off work for five months, and still suffers from short-term memory loss.

The 44-year-old widower was assaulted at The Oak in Corstorphine by builder Barry Ronaldson, who was originally charged with attempted murder.

His guilty plea to a reduced charge of serious assault was accepted and an allegation that he had repeatedly stamped on his victim's head was dropped.

Mr Millan, who has three children, said paramedics had twice fought to revive him in the ambulance after he stopped breathing.

The court also heard that 31-year-old Ronaldson had a previous conviction for another serious assault.

He said: "To go from an attempted murder charge to be heard at the High Court to getting 200 hours of community service at the Sheriff Court is ridiculous. I'm disgusted at what has happened. He should've got a jail sentence for what was a completely unprovoked assault because my life has been badly affected. I've never even received an apology or found out why he did it.

"I still have short-term memory problems. The doctors say my memory should come back but it's still bad at the moment.

"Thankfully the staff at the ERI were very good, so I don't have recurring problems.

"But I keep thinking that I could've been killed and my children, who have already lost their mum, would've lost their dad too."

Mr Millan lost his wife, Amanda, to a brain haemorrhage in 2003, leaving him to raise twins Nyle and Fern, 16, and Shaw, 14.

Recalling the attack, Mr Millan, who lives in Corstorphine, said: "I had been out that evening with friends and at about 10pm we were getting ready to head home. I saw Barry Ronaldson's wife at another table with a couple of her friends so I went over to say we were leaving, because I knew them.

"In the next moment, he attacked me from behind and that was the last I knew about it. Apparently I was left unconscious and I woke up in the hospital.

"I was told Ronaldson had attacked me again while I was unconscious and broke my ankle."

During a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Wednesday, advocate depute Jonathan Brodie QC said Ronaldson was thrown out of the bar after felling Mr Millan with a punch on 4 July, 2008.

When Mr Millan came out of the bar he attacked him again, knocking him out cold and hit the unconscious man again as he lay on the ground.

Mr Millan suffered a fractured skull and extensive damage to the bones in his face, which kept him in hospital for a week and away from work for five months.

Father-of-three Ronaldson, of Carrick Knowe Place, was ordered to complete 200 hours of community service and pay his victim 2,000 in compensation.

Lord Menzies said if Ronaldson had stamped on Mr Millan's head then a prison term would have been inevitable.