Published: Thursday, 4th March, 2010 2:00pm

Pub assault pair are locked up

SCENE: Oscars.

TWO men who took part in a vicious brawl in a Greenock town centre bar have been jailed.

Brian Morrison, 23, and Gary Bradley, 24, left a man needing hospital treatment after the bottle attack in Oscar's, King Street, on 13 December.

The pub, pictured, was closed down shortly afterwards, following talks between its management and senior police officers, and remains shut.

Morrison was once interviewed for a BBC TV Panorama documentary about young offenders. He told the 2005 programme he had stabbed five people and said he would carry a knife every day 'without a second thought'.

Greenock Sheriff Court heard the pair had been drinking with the victim and others at the bar during the day.

The victim left but returned later and headbutted Bradley on the face.

They started to fight and Bradley struck the man repeatedly on the head.

Fiscal depute Lindy Scaife told the court: "Brian Morrison picked up an empty Bacardi Breezer bottle and struck the complainer on the head with it."

All three fell to the floor where Bradley held the man between his legs and punched him on the face and body.

Morrison then struck him on the face and neck with the bottle several times.

Police were called and all three were taken to Inverclyde Royal Hospital. The victim had cuts to his head and face and required stitches around both eyes. Bradley's nose was broken and Morrison sustained cuts to his hand.

Morrison told police officers the victim had a knife and had told him he would be stabbed.

Sheriff Rajni Swanney was handed a letter from the complainer which confirmed he had a knife and was intent on using it.

Ellen MacDonald, representing Brian Morrison, said her client had initially acted in self-defence, but went beyond that. She said: "He is devastated by his conduct and genuinely remorseful."

Sheriff Rajni Swanney said she had read the letter from the victim but believed the pair had 'reacted inappropriately'.

She said: "The difficulty for you is there are alternatives - it is not necessary to pick up a bottle and attack him or to keep punching him. Your reactions were inappropriate."

Sheriff Swanney said that because of what she had read in the letter and heard in court, she was going to restrict the sentences.

Morrison, an inmate at Greenock Prison, admitted repeatedly striking the man with a bottle to his injury, and was jailed for nine months.

Bradley, of Bridgend Cottages, Inverkip, represented by John Gardener, pleaded guilty to assaulting the man by punching him and was jailed for three months.