Disgruntled Falkirk tenant tried to murder housing association officer

A tenant with a six year grudge against his housing association landlords tried to murder one of the organisation’s officials.

Scott Nairns, 51, battered a 63-year-old housing officer so badly that he spent 17 days in hospital.

The attack, in the common close of Nairn’s flat in Glynwed Court, Falkirk, caused the victim multiple facial fractures, a bleed on the brain, and partial collapse of both lungs.

The High Court in Stirling heard the housing officer – who had gone into the block of flats to put up a notice about recycling – staggered into the street dazed, confused and disorientated.

The sight of him on the pavement covered in blood was so “horrific” it stopped lunchtime traffic.

Drivers who halted, abandoning their cars to help, said he was so soaked in his own blood they could not see the colour of his hair.

Two drivers, described in court as “Good Samaritans”, who went to the man’s aid, said he had a “vacant” look in his eyes, kept repeating “I need to get away”. He asked one of them, a workman who was a first-aider, “Am I going to die?”

His injuries were so bad the first-aider assumed he must have been hit by a car.

He was taken to hospital and placed on a ventilator and in an induced coma before surgery to repair fractures to his cheek bones, eye sockets, and nose.

Police found blood on the floor and “up the walls” of the close. Paperwork he had been carrying was scattered on the floor soaked in blood.

Nairns was arrested in his flat.

Officers found some of his victim’s hair in his bathroom along with blood-soaked clothing Nairns had been trying to wash.

The court heard Nairns was “disgruntled” with Link Housing, and with the housing officer, over an incident in 2016 when he was briefly evicted from his flat in Glynwed Court.

However his tenancy, cancelled over alleged abandonment, had been “very quickly” restored.

The housing officer, who had worked with Link Housing for 30 years, gave evidence by video link.

He said he could remember nothing of the attack, and could only recall being in a neighbouring block on the day the incident, March 3, 2022, putting up notices about bins and changing a tenancy, and then waking up in hospital.

He said he had been left with a scar on his temple and scars on his head, and still suffers from confusion, loss of words, loss of confidence, and a permanently numb top lip.

The now-65-year-old has not worked since and has since retired.

Nairns, of Falkirk, denied assaulting the housing officer in the course of his employment to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement, permanent impairment and danger of his life, and attempting to murder him.

No defence evidence was led.

Kath Harper, prosecuting, said Nairns was either intending to murder his victim, or had acted with such wicked recklessness that he didn’t care whether he lived or died.

After a two day trial, jurors took less than two hours to find Nairns guilty on Friday, March 1. The verdict was unanimous.

Judge Lord Young deferred sentence for a criminal justice social work report until April 2 at the High Court in Glasgow.

Brian McConnachie, KC, defending, reserved mitigation.