Ex-boxer back behind bars for a third time
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A FORMER boxer from Alness who has previously been jailed for supplying drugs and illegal possession of a knife is back behind bars this week after being found guilty of a violent attack on a woman with a bottle.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how the attack by Scott Ross (33) had left his terrified victim "traumatised" and suffering from a number of injuries.
Ross repeatedly hit the woman on the head and body and pulled her hair during the attack at a house in Inverness on December 28 last year.
Jailing him for 30 months, Lord Pentland told Ross: "It is clear this was a violent attack which resulted in the complainer sustaining a number of injuries. She was also traumatised by your conduct."
He said he had to reflect that the violent assault extended to striking the victim on the head with a weapon.
The judge noted that the assault took place against a background of Ross taking cocaine with a number of his associates.
He was originally accused of compressing the woman’s neck and raping her at a house in Inverness on December 28 last year, but was earlier acquitted on the sex crime charge.
But Ross, currently a prisoner, was found guilty of carrying out the assault on the woman on the same day at a time when he had been freed under a bail order granted at Portree Sheriff Court in August last year.
Defence counsel Frances Connor said Ross acknowledged that his behaviour had been "reprehensible".
She said Ross, a father-of-two, lost his temper at a time when he was under the influence of "various substances".
She added: "He knows that his actions were unacceptable."
Lord Pentland ordered that Ross be kept under supervision for a year following his prison sentence and warned that if he breached the conditions of the order he could be brought back to court and might face a return to jail.
Ross, who has previous convictions for crimes of violence and disorder, was jailed for 43 months in 2013 for trafficking in drugs.
He was part of a gang dealing in cocaine in Alness and elsewhere in Scotland between June and October 2010.
The jail term, imposed at that time at the High Court in Glasgow, included a confiscation order for £35,000 including an Audi Quattro car made under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
And then at the beginning of 2015 he was jailed for 18 months after being caught in possession of a knife with a five-inch blade during an incident at a block of flats in Mackintosh Road in Inverness.
He admitted being in possession of a knife without excuse at the time of the October 2014 incident and knocking a female police officer to the ground to her injury.
A later appeal against the prison term was thrown out. His solicitor had attempted to argue that the knife only came into his possession moments before the incident when he had been confronted by a drunk woman holding it.
