A TEENAGER was rushed to hospital for a brain scan after being surrounded and brutally beaten by a gang of three youths outside a Port Glasgow supermarket, a court has heard.

The 19-year-old victim told the High Court in Glasgow how he was knocked unconscious and left lying on a roundabout after being attacked by the trio near to Tesco in Brown Street.

Taking to the witness box on Friday, he picked out 17-year-old Grant Quigley, a two-time British and four-time Scottish boxing champion, as one of the people who had carried out the attack.

Quigley, of Hillside Drive, Port Glasgow, and 18-year-olds Michael Murray and Lee Doherty, are all charged with the man's attempted murder.

Describing events on the night, the alleged victim said: "I recognised Grant Quigley as I knew him from school.

"We all began fighting and next thing I was surrounded by the three of them. I felt a blow to the head and that was it, I was knocked out.

"Next thing I knew I was waking up in hospital.

"I had no memory of anything at all for about a week."

The court was told that the man and a female friend had been stopped by the three accused after leaving a party to visit Tesco for food just after 1.30am.

The man stared at the three accused in the dock, before turning to screens dotted around the courtroom as CCTV footage of the attack was replayed.

QC Joe Barr, representing Quigley on behalf of principal solicitor Gerry Keenan, suggested to the victim that he had in fact been the aggressor.

He said: "You had bullied Grant Quigley at school to the extent that his parents had to pick him up at home time.

"Was it not the case that you, on the night in question, called him names, thinking he was an easy target and said you were going to stab him, that you were going to batter him the way you had battered his brother?"

The man replied: "No."

When asked about footage of the alleged attack, the victim admitted the trio could have thought he was armed with a knife after he was seen reaching down his tracksuit bottoms.

The victim also admitted trying to land the first blow when the fight broke out, telling the court: "I'm not a person who is going to run away."

The second day of the trial heard that the alleged victim had been rushed to Inverclyde Royal Hospital for treatment, where he was visited by officers from Greenock CID.

Although the teen claimed in court he could remember little of the attack, in a statement to police he said he had been set upon and knocked to the ground by the trio - claiming they then 'stamped all over his head'.

The 19-year-old also refused to name his alleged assailants, telling police: "I'm not a grass. I will sort this out myself."

All three are alleged to have assaulted the man by attempting to punch him and forcing him on to the roundabout at Brown Street, before repeatedly punching and kicking him on the head and body, causing him to fall to the ground on 20 November.

The trio are charged with repeatedly punching and kicking him for a second time before repeatedly jumping and stamping on his head and body, all to his severe injury and to the danger of the man's life.

Their alleged actions are said to have been in an attempt to murder the man.

Quigley, Murray, of Benview Road, Port Glasgow, and Doherty, of St Mary's Wynd, Stirling, all deny the charges against them.

The trial before judge Lord Glennie continues.