TWO men who were charged with using a baseball bat and a sword to carry out a ‘terrifying’ alleged street attack in Larkfield have walked free from court.

Kieran Murphy, 19, and Jason Morrison, 21, faced four charges at a trial following an early morning incident in Cumberland Road in December last year.

Prosecutors said that both men, along with a group of others, assaulted a resident on the arm with a sword and on the body with a baseball bat to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement.

They were both also accused of assaulting a woman by brandishing a sword at her.

Other charges stated that they damaged two cars and the windows of a home, formed part of a ‘disorderly crowd’ and committed a breach of the peace.

Two other men who stood trial had the charges against them dropped.

Murphy, represented by solicitor Edward Sweeney, and Morrison, represented by defence advocate Euan Cameron, denied all the charges against them.

A jury unanimously found the charges against Morrison, of Cumberland Road, not proven.

Murphy, an inmate at Polmont Young Offenders’ Institute, was unanimously found not guilty of three charges but convicted of a breach of the peace.

He was admonished by Sheriff Derek Hamilton over that offence.

The trial had heard evidence from one woman who described the incident as ‘an extremely terrifying attack’.

A male witness said he had seen five to 10 men with ‘hoods covering their faces’ outside his home in the early hours of 7 December.

He told the court: “I ran out and started getting scudded with things.

“A bat or a pole hit me on the left arm and on the back of my neck.” But the witness told depute fiscal Pamela Brady that he was ‘really drunk’ at the time and could not identify the person who had struck him.

The man also told the court that he did not pick out one of the accused from an identity parade ‘for the safety of my family’.