TWO brothers who had been charged with attempting to murder a 15-year-old boy with a machete in Port Glasgow have been cleared.

James Gisbey, 45, and Daniel Gisbey, 40, were ruled to have no case to answer following submissions to the High Court by their legal teams.

The Gisbeys had been charged with pursuing the schoolboy, causing him to fall to the ground and repeatedly striking him on the body with a machete or similar instrument to his severe injury, permanent impairment, permanent disfigurement and to the danger of his life.

Prosecutors said that the brothers had been acting with an unknown individual at the time of the alleged murder bid at the Port's Mossyde Avenue on February 22.

Daniel Gisbey had also been accused of assaulting the youth at Auchenbothie Road by brandishing a knife and making threats of violence, and also of possession of a blade.

However, despite the boy identifying the brothers as his alleged attackers during a trial and stating that they had been in a silver-coloured Vauxhall Astra, there was a lack of corroborative evidence.

A woman whom the boy had ran to could not make out who attacked him and a man who took a grainy image of a silver-coloured Astra did not note its registration plate.

Further, an examination of the Gisbeys car — which is a silver-coloured Astra — showed no traces of blood.

The High Court in Glasgow heard how cuts had been inflicted on the 15-year-old's arms and hands and that one of his fingers was almost completely detached and had to be re-attached by medics.

Counsel Paul Nelson, for Daniel Gisbey, and James Wallace, for James Gisbey — instructed by Keenan Solicitors of Greenock — made no case to answer submissions to Judge Lord Clark, who upheld their legal argument and acquitted the brothers.