But his accomplice, Malcolm John McColl, who punched the victim, was bound over because he himself was recently the victim of an attack which has left him blind in one eye. It was heard in the Royal Court yesterday that Colin Christopher McLaughlin could have killed the man after he launched at him following a scuffle between the victim and a teenage boy. McColl (29) had instigated the attack when he saw the victim push the 14-year-old boy in Parade Gardens. The court was told that McColl’s assessment as being at a low risk of reoffending reflected the fact that he had himself been the victim of a horrific assault not long after the attack, in which a man threw caustic soda and acid in his face.

