Motorist ran down knife attacker

Armstrong had caught two youths writing graffiti the previous day

A motorist who ran down a man who confronted him with a knife and baton has been jailed for three years and eight months.

Stephen Armstrong, 47, was sitting in his people carrier in Glasgow when the 22-year-old man pulled out the weapons and smashed a window of the vehicle.

Father-of-eight Armstrong accelerated the people carrier into his attacker, leaving him seriously injured.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Armstrong admitted assaulting the man.

The court was told that the day before the incident on 12 April, 2007 , Armstrong had challenged two youths he had caught painting gang slogans on a fence near his home in Glasgow's Southpark Village.

You were entitled to be angry. You were entitled to be affronted. But you were not entitled to respond by wielding your vehicle as a weapon Lady Smith

One of the youths returned the next day with the 22-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who was later run down by Armstrong.

Passing sentence, judge Lady Smith told Armstrong she had no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence and said she would have sentenced him to five years, but for his guilty plea.

She added: "There seems no doubt he presented weapons at you and he deliberately broke a window in your van.

"You were entitled to be angry. You were entitled to be affronted. But you were not entitled to respond by wielding your vehicle as a weapon at him in the way you did."

Gang slogans

The victim suffered a broken leg and collar bone and punctured lung and spent over six weeks in hospital after Armstrong mounted the pavement in his vehicle and drove it into him as he stood in nearby bushes.

The former publican was originally charged with attempted murder, but the Crown accepted his guilty plea to the reduced charge.

Defence solicitor advocate Maurice Smyth told the court that Armstrong said he lived in "a respectable, residential area where people take a real interest in their families and property".

But he said youngsters had filtered in from other areas and would meet at stairs which he said had become "a meeting place for all sorts of ne'er-do-wells, drinkers and drug takers".

As often happens in these cases involving residents and vandals, trouble comes to the resident Maurice Smyth Solicitor Advocate

He said on the day before the attack, Armstrong was at home when he learnt that boys were painting gang slogans such as "Welcome to Hell" and "Southsey Rules" on a perimeter fence.

He explained the situation to the father of one of the boys who told him he would take care of it. The boy, under his parent's supervision, began painting over the graffiti.

But the following day, as Armstrong was preparing to leave home, he saw the other boy with the older man, who appeared under the influence of drink or drugs, in his street.

Mr Smyth said of Armstrong: "He was someone going about his lawful business when there was an encounter with these people. He did not seek trouble and he did not look for trouble that night.

"As often happens in these cases involving residents and vandals, trouble comes to the resident."