Security guard loses appeal over fatal assault

A SECURITY guard who kicked and battered a frail grandfather to death for giving him a V-sign failed today in a bid to get his eight-year jail sentence cut.

But appeal judges told John Lindsay – who has become a model prisoner – that he might win early parole.

A trial heard how 62-year-old Neil Duffy died in agony four days after the beating he got from Lindsay, 25, in a street in Niddrie in January 2006.

Doctors had failed to spot that the grandad was slowly bleeding to death from a ruptured spleen.

Today, defence QC Gordon Jackson told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that if it had not been for the medical failure, Lindsay's assault would not have been a High Court matter.

The lawyer also argued that the judge who jailed Lindsay had treated it as an attack "out of the blue". In fact there had been a history of animosity between the Lindsay and Duffy families.

Mr Jackson also produced references – including one from a prison officer – backing his claim that Lindsay was a hard-working dad who had been planning to go to university before going into the family business.

But Lord Nimmo Smith, sitting with Lord Reed, threw out the appeal, saying the jury must have been satisfied that Lindsay's kicks and punches had killed the older man, not negligence by doctors.

Trial judge Lord Uist, sentencing Lindsay, had described the fatal assault as "calculated violence". Lord Nimmo Smith said: "We are not persuaded that the sentence can be described as excessive."

Lindsay, formerly of Niddrie Marischal Crescent, was found guilty of culpable homicide last July. Today he was contesting the length of his sentence.

The earlier trial heard how the security guard, who stood 5ft 8in and weighed 14 stone, claimed he was acting in self-defence against 5ft 3in, short-sighted Mr Duffy.

Lindsay told police investigating the death that he was driving to his mother's home and added: "As I got to the end of my street Neil Duffy stuck his fingers up and started laughing."

After the assault Mr Duffy, a retired painter and decorator, got up and walked to his home in Niddrie Marischal Grove.

A later post mortem found five areas of bruising to his face, bruises to both sides of his head, trunk and back and a fractured rib as well as a ruptured spleen.