SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said:

"Alec Fallon, Lauren Neary, AB and Robert Faulds, at a continued preliminary hearing at Glasgow High Court on 5 March 2025, you each tendered pleas of guilty in the following terms. You, Alec Fallon and AB, pled guilty to a single charge of assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement, permanent impairment and danger of life, all while you, Mr Fallon, were on 9 bail orders and you, AB, were on 1 bail order. You, Lauren Neary and Robert Faulds, pled guilty to a single charge of assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement, permanent impairment and danger of life and attempted murder, all while you, Mr Faulds, were on 10 bail orders.  These pleas had been offered at an earlier preliminary hearing by you Mr Fallon, Ms Neary and AB.  At that earlier hearing a warrant required to be taken in respect of you, Mr Faulds.

You Mr Fallon are now aged 19.  You were aged 18 at the date of this offence.  You have to date accrued 10 groups of previous convictions, one involving two offences of assault to injury in respect of a child.  You have 41 pending cases.

You Ms Neary are now aged 18.  You were aged 17 at the date of this offence.  You have to date accrued 3 groups of previous convictions, one a post‑offence conviction for a racially aggravated assault while on bail.

You AB are now aged 15.  You were aged 14 at the date of this offence.  You have no previous convictions but as at the date of this offence you had 14 pending cases, one of which is being prosecuted on indictment in respect of aggravated violence and possession of an offensive weapon.  Since the date of the present offence you have been reported to the police for a further 15 cases, some of which are to be prosecuted on indictment in respect of crimes of violence.

You Mr Faulds are now aged 20.  You were aged 19 at the date of this offence.  You have to date accrued 8 groups of previous convictions.  One of these relates to the possession of a knife and threatening and abusive behaviour involving a knife.  You have 8 pending cases.

The facts of this case are deeply disturbing.  The agreed narrative of facts reads like the script to some sort of dystopian zombie genre horror film.  Substantial custodial disposals are inevitable for each of you this morning.  You acted together as part of a single feral mob in which you targeted a member of the public who was entirely unknown to you in a frenzy of improvised and brutal instrumental violence, all in a concerted attack which you, Neary and Faulds, have accepted by your pleas was in the end wholly murderous in its nature.

At around 9pm on 30 March 2024, you were all part of an intoxicated group of young people who had disembarked from a train at Blantyre Station.  Walking in the middle of and thereby blocking Station Road, one of your group was clipped by the wing mirror of the complainer’s vehicle as he drove at low speed, attempting to drop off his daughter at the station.  You surrounded his car, in a group.  You became aggressive.  The complainer, having been punched in the face, got back into his car.  You kicked and punched at the car.  He drove away some 100 metres and got out to fix his wing mirrors, which your group had pushed in.  As he did so he saw three males running up behind him in possession of glass bottles and what appeared to be a plank of wood.  He ran to the address of a friend in Station Road to obtain help.  

As a group you then, in summary, thereafter in a concerted attack upon your victim, repeatedly punched and kicked him on the head and body, repeatedly threw stones, bottles, rocks and other items at him, repeatedly caused him to fall to the ground, and repeatedly struck him on the head and body with bottles, stones, rocks and other items.  In particular, you, Faulds and AB, struck the complainer on the head with a glass bottle.  The group of you smashed windows and a door at the property. The group of you momentarily made off but you, Neary, Faulds and AB returned, lifting rocks and boulders and throwing them at the complainer.  You, AB, threw a rock which struck him on the face, and you, Neary, picked up the same rock and threw it at his head again.  You, Faulds, threw a rock with force which struck the complainer on the head, causing him to collapse to the ground where he remained.  You, Neary, continued to throw rocks at him as he lay helpless on the ground.  He raised his arms to protect himself as he lay on his back but could not get up from the ground, appearing completely defenceless and dazed.  You, Neary, then stood over your victim’s head and, with some difficulty, lifted a rock and threw it with force towards his head as he lay motionless on the ground.  The rock struck him to the side of the head and he slumped to the ground.  As your group ran away down Station Road, you, Neary, stated that you thought you had just killed him.

Paramedics took your victim, an off duty police officer, to Hairmyres Hospital.  He had sustained the following injuries:  a 5 cm laceration to the face which required 10 stitches;  a 2.5 cm laceration behind his right ear and a 2 cm and a 1 cm laceration to his right ear, requiring 16 stitches;  a 3 cm laceration to the right side of his head requiring 2 stitches;  a 3 cm laceration to the left side of his head requiring 3 stitches;  a 1 cm cut to his right ring finger requiring 2 stitches;  and a spiral fracture to his left eye socket.  The complainer required to undergo plastic surgery to his nose.  His nose had been broken and the bones between his eyes had been shattered.  The top of his nose was caved in causing his nose to twist to one side.  During a 3 hour operation under general anaesthetic the complainer’s nose was rebuilt and a metal plate was inserted into his face.  He was unable to breathe through his nose prior to this surgery.  His vision was affected.  He has lost sensation from the left side of the nose and from his eyebrow to the left of his upper lip.  He has lost sensation in some teeth and below the right eye and right ring fingertip.  He has residual scarring behind his right ear and on his forehead reaching down the front of his nose.  He has scarring on his right ring finger and on the top of his head.  He can no longer participate in any contact sport.  His police career has been adversely affected.  He continues to suffer from dizziness and extreme fatigue.

I have listened with care to the submissions advanced on behalf of each of you this morning by your respective counsel.  In particular I note your respective ages now and at the date of the index offence, and what has been said by your counsel in respect of your expressed remorse and your respective upbringings and challenging personal circumstances, together with your acceptance of responsibility by way of your guilty pleas. I further note, regarding you Mr Fallon, your renewed contact with your mother and your commencement of educational courses already in custody alongside your intention in due course to make a fresh start in a different location. Ms Neary, I note the full terms of Dr Bordon’s report, your background of adverse childhood experiences, your severing of links with the wider group involved in this case and what I will categorise generically as pertinent mental health issues arising in respect of you. In particular, you appear to meet the criteria required, albeit that this is not a diagnosis, of post-traumatic stress disorder. AB, you were and are significantly younger than your co-accused. I note in particular what I have been advised regarding your letter of apology and your return to the scene to seek to provide assistance. Mr Faulds, I note what has been said regarding your own adverse childhood experiences and the neurodevelopmental issues contained in the reports of Dr Mohammad and Dr MacPherson along with your difficulties with self-regulation.

Having regard to the exceptional gravity of the index offence, the background material now available in respect of each of you and the mitigation advanced on your behalf this morning, the court now sentences you as follows.

Alec Fallon, you are aged 19 and were an adult when you committed this crime. That said, the relevant young persons guideline is still engaged in your case. You have a record and many pending cases. You were on no less than 9 bail orders. You had consumed alcohol and the controlled drug ecstasy on the day of this offence. You have a history of multiple class A controlled drug misuse. You are assessed as presenting a very high level of risk in relation to general offending. You will serve a sentence of detention of 4 years duration. This period is discounted from one of 5 years and 6 months due to the timing of your guilty plea. I attribute 6 months of that headline period to the bail aggravations libelled.

Lauren Neary, you are aged 18 and were aged 17, some 3 months short of being an adult, when you committed this crime. You also have a record. Once again the relevant guidelines are engaged. Your plea was one to the attempted murder of the complainer. Your throwing of a rock at your victim’s head as he lay motionless on the ground was plainly in and of itself a cruel and murderous act which frankly defies belief. You were on any view a principal actor in this concerted crime. On the day in question you had consumed alcohol and class A and B controlled drugs, on your own account. You will serve a sentence of detention of 6 years duration. This period is discounted from one of 8 years due to the timing of your guilty plea.

AB, you are a child aged 15 and were 14 when you committed this crime. You have multiple pending cases and were on one bail order. The relevant guidelines are very much engaged in respect of you. The panel recommendation for a remit is in my view unrealistic standing the nature and gravity of the present case. You will serve a sentence of detention of 30 months duration. This period is discounted from one of 40 months due to the timing of your guilty plea. I attribute 4 months of that headline period to the bail aggravation libelled.

Robert Faulds, you are aged 20 and were 19 when you committed this crime, and therefore an adult. Nevertheless, but to a lesser degree, the relevant guidelines remain engaged in respect of you. Your plea was one to the attempted murder of the complainer. You have a record and multiple pending cases. You were subject to 10 bail orders.  You have been assessed as presenting a high level of risk and present an ongoing risk of serious harm to others. You, on your own account, have previously, but not on this occasion, misused alcohol and controlled drugs. A warrant required to be taken in respect of you, thereby considerably reducing the utility of your plea of guilty. It appears to me that the normal period of licence would not be adequate to protect the public from serious harm from you when you are in due course released into the community. You will serve an extended sentence of 11 years duration, with a custodial part of 8 years detention and an extension period of 3 years. The custodial period is discounted from one of 9 years due to the timing and procedural history of your plea. I attribute 6 months of that headline custodial figure to the bail aggravations libelled. The extension period which I have mentioned will involve you being under supervision while on licence in the community. The conditions of your licence will be fixed by Scottish Ministers. If you fail to comply with these licence conditions your licence will be revoked and you may be returned to custody for a further period in respect of this indictment. The court also has power to deal with you if you commit a further offence after your release from the custodial part of this sentence while you are on licence and under supervision.

These sentences will be backdated to the respective dates of your initial remands into custody in these proceedings, as follows: Neary and AB, to 5 March 2025; and Faulds to 4 March 2025. In the case of Fallon, other periods of remand prevent a backdating to the original date of your own remand in this case, and on a pragmatic basis I simply elect to backdate your sentence also to 5 March 2025.

You should all understand that these sentences are all imposed at considerably lesser tariffs than would have been applicable but for your respective ages and the fixed engagement of the young persons sentencing guideline. That said, in the event of any future violent indictment-level offending by any of you on your release from these sentences, I wish to make it crystal clear that you should expect the court to treat you without leniency."