Man attacked blind neighbour with walking stick in row over noise

A conman who brutally attacked his neighbour with his walking stick after a noise row has been jailed for six years.

Thomas Restorick, 48, lashed out with the metal stick that he had been using since a fall at the flats in Musselburgh, East Lothian, last summer.

Restorick – jailed for ten years in 2002 for duping a retired civil servant out of his life savings – had apparently been having issues with the victim since he had moved there.

The man was eventually found lying stricken in the street.

The string of injuries he suffered included losing part of one of his fingers.

Restorick was jailed at the High Court in Glasgow by Judge Lord Renucci.

Restorick will be supervised for a further two years on his release.

He had previously admitted to assaulting the man to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement and impairment.

The court heard how there had been regular complaints about the victim, who is registered blind, playing loud music at his home, banging, and his smoke alarm regularly going off.

Restorick had been struggling to sleep at the time of the attack last October 14 as he tried to recover from his earlier fall and had come downstairs to ask his neighbour to turn his music down.

Both men were said to be “angry” and the incident spilled outside.

It was there that the victim recalled being hit with what he wrongly believed was a pickaxe handle.

Another resident heard what she thought were “three nasty sounding punches” which made her feel “sick to her stomach”.

Prosecutor Leanne McQuillan said the man appeared to be “cowering” and trying to shield himself.

The victim was rushed to hospital – he ended up needing part of his right ring finger amputated.

He also had a number of wounds to his head and ear.

Restorick was later arrested after confessing to a nurse he had spoken to that he had been having “issues” with a man and had given him a “kicking”.

Restorick first made headlines when he was jailed for conning an Edinburgh pensioner out of almost £500,000 for what a judge described at the time as “the worst crime of deception of the elderly” ever before the courts.

He has since had a number of convictions for violence.

He was freed from his last jail term in 2021 and had lived in the flats at Musselburgh “without incident” until the victim moved in.

Sentencing, Lord Renucci told Restorick: “It may be he was playing his music too loud and that you and others may have had issues with him in the past.

“Only one of you resorted to violence with a weapon.

“Whatever your injuries, they did not stop you carrying out this assault.”

The jail term was cut from eight years due to the guilty plea.