SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Harrower said:

"John Wilson Irving, on the first day of a trial diet, you pled guilty to a charge of assault with a knife causing severe injury to the complainer, permanently disfiguring him and endangering his life.

I have been provided with a detailed narrative, from which it appears that, on Friday, 1 March 2024, you invited the complainer, a work colleague, round to your flat in Leith.  He arrived just after 10pm and together you drank some beers and took cocaine.  At some point an argument developed during which he complained that you had taken his mobile telephone.  He refused to leave without it.  At this point in the narrative, it is stated merely that you were “in possession of a knife” and that you “stabbed the complainer”.  The narrative goes on to describe the knife as being about nine inches long overall with a black handle.  It is silent on the length and width of the blade, and parties couldn’t be sure that it was the same knife that had been retrieved from a drawer in your kitchen and produced in court.  Nevertheless, it seemed to be accepted that the knife used was a utility knife, with a straight edge, of the sort shown in a photograph of three knives taken from your kitchen. 

The complainer immediately realised he was bleeding and held his hand over his chest to stem the flow.  Still without his mobile phone, he asked you to call an ambulance.  You didn’t do so, and now claim that you don’t even remember having been asked.  However, it is difficult otherwise to explain why the complainer would have found it necessary to leave your flat and go out into an empty street at about two o’clock in the morning to find help.  The complainer decided to flag down the first car he saw, and was fortunate to be rescued by two gentlemen making their way towards Bernard Street.  They phoned for an ambulance, but after being told they would have to wait 45 minutes for it to arrive, they took the complainer directly to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on the other side of town. Slumped over the back seat of their car, the complainer drifted in and out of consciousness, kept alert only by the two gentlemen continually trying to engage him in conversation. 

Upon examination at the ERI, the complainer was found to have suffered a 4cm stab wound to his chest, a severe laceration to his liver, and a small haematoma in his diaphragm.  There was a large volume of blood in his abdomen but he was not actively bleeding, and there was no injury to any major blood vessels.  The next day he was able to be transferred from the high dependency unit to the ward, where he recovered well before being discharged on 7 March 2024.

Mr Irving, it was sheer good luck that the complainer was picked up earlier by the two passers-by.  Just as it was pure chance that your assault did not cause more extensive damage to any major organs or blood vessels.  Had it done so, as the consultant surgeon responsible for the care of the complainer has explained, it would have had the potential to be life-threatening.  In all the circumstances, you can consider yourself fortunate not to be facing an even more serious charge. 

You are 36 years old, and have an extensive history of prior offending, including five previous convictions for assault. Although the most recent of these was in 2015, and you have no record of any offending behaviour between 2017 and 2023, you managed to acquire three separate convictions in 2023 alone.  The last of these convictions was on 20 December 2023 for a statutory offence of stalking, and for which, on 16 February 2024, you received a community payback order.  The present offence was therefore committed while still subject to that order. I shall need to return to that matter at the conclusion of these remarks.

I have taken account of everything submitted today on your behalf by Ms Culross, and of the pre-sentencing report, in which the author describes you as having expressed remorse, shown empathy and taken full responsibility for your actions.  Unfortunately, there are also aspects of the report in which you appear to have minimised your offending, for example, by blaming it on your having been intoxicated, which is no excuse at all.  If anything, your decision to consume alcohol and drugs constitutes an aggravation of the offence.  I have also taken into account the absence of any premeditation and the fact that this was a single blow rather than a sustained attack.  However, given the severity of harm caused, and the fact that you resorted to the use of a dangerous weapon, there is no alternative to a substantial custodial sentence. 

You have been assessed as presenting with a medium risk of re-offending.  In light of that assessment, and the fact that you have shown yourself capable of periods of desistance, I see no need to extend the ordinary period of licence to which you will be subject when released from prison.  Had I been sentencing you after trial, I would have imposed a sentence of imprisonment of 7 years or 84 months.  However, I am advised that, on the date of the preliminary hearing, you offered a plea in the same terms as that now accepted by the Crown.  On that basis, I am prepared to reduce your sentence to 63 months. 

I need to backdate your sentence in order to reflect time spent in prison which is properly attributable to the present offence.  You were remanded in custody on 4 March 2024.  However, on 4 July 2025, the CPO imposed on 16 February 2024, and to which I have already referred, was revoked and substituted with a sentence of 150 days’ imprisonment.  Backdating your offence to 4 March 2024 would give you credit for time spent or to be spent in prison which is attributable to an entirely unrelated matter.  I shall therefore backdate your sentence to the date falling 75 days after you were remanded in custody in connection with the present offence.  By my calculations, that date is 18 May 2024."