A Scots soldier has avoided being thrown out of the Army after a brutal assault on a fellow squaddie on a military night-out.
Gordon Smart left the victim with a fractured eye socket after bad blood between the pair spilled over next to an Edinburgh pub.
A lawyer for the 35-year-old said he regretted the feud turning violent in public as “what happens in the barracks stays in the barracks”.
The city’s sheriff court was told Smart faced an administrative discharge if he was jailed or received more than 100 hours of community service.
Sheriff Alistair Noble noted Smart’s references from superior officers and the fact he’d completed two marathons and an ultra-marathon for a cancer charity.
The sheriff fined Smart, of Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, £395.
Smart appeared at the court on Tuesday and pled guilty to assaulting John Dill to his severe injury.
Fiscal depute India MacLean said a group of soldiers had been drinking at The Three Sisters pub in the Cowgate.
Ms MacLean said Smart and John had been “continually annoying each other throughout the day”, but it was seen by others in the party as “light-hearted”.
The court heard the pair left the pub together and entered nearby Scott’s Close.
Ms MacLean said: “Mr Smart has punched Mr Dill to the head, causing bleeding.”
The prosecutor said John suffered a fractured eye socket while Smart was taken to St Leonards police station following the incident on August 24 last year.
Defence agent Daniel Cameron said his client was an “exemplary” soldier, but faced a discharge if the sentence reached a certain threshold.
Mr Cameron said ending Smart’s military career “might be disproportionate”, adding the victim “bears him no ill will”.
The court was told John declined to give a police statement and hadn’t wanted the prosecution to proceed.
Mr Cameron said: “He wished the matter had been kept inside the regiment.”
A senior Army officer present in court confirmed to Sheriff Noble that “Lance Corporal Dill is fully recovered now”.
The sheriff noted Smart had raised a “significant amount for charity” and had a career “trajectory with an upward path”.
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