Maniac's T In The Park murder bid

Jun 17 2009 Paisley Daily Express

A VICIOUS knifeman who stabbed a reveller at the T in the Park music festival was yesterday sent to prison for nine years.

Robert Kidd, from Barrhead, plunged a camping knife into victim Mark Morrison’s back after the 23-year-old bank worker went to the aid of three women friends already involved in a row with the thug.

John Tiffoney – Kidd’s co-accused – also tried to murder Mr Morrison and, yesterday, he too was jailed for nine years for his part in the savage attack.

The High Court in Dunfermline heard that 22-year-old student Ashleigh McComb, 21-year-old customer services worker Laura More and her sister Leanne had given Kidd and Tiffoney a ticking off after finding them about to urinate on their tent in the campsite at the summer music festival.

The thugs responded to this by spitting on Miss McComb and punching her on the face, spitting on Laura More and pushing Leanne More so hard that she fell over.

Mr Morrison grabbed Miss McComb’s attacker – it was never established whether it was Kidd or Tiffoney – and the other yob instantly jumped on his back.

In the moments that followed, Mr Morrison was punched and repeatedly stabbed in the back and fell bleeding to the ground.

His friends lifted his T-shirt to find that his back was covered with stab wounds.

Police and paramedics were called and Mr Morrison was taken to the festival medical tent, where a drain was inserted in an emergency procedure as one of the stab wounds had punctured his lung.

Jurors were shown pictures of Mr Morrison’s injuries, which included six stab wounds on his back, three on his right side, one on the left side of his mouth which has left a permanent scar and one on the right side of his head.

The court was told that, if it hadn’t been for the paramedics’ swift intervention in fitting the chest drain, Mr Morrison could have died.

After a six-day trial, the jury took three-and-a-half hours to find 25-year-old Kidd and Tiffoney, also 25, guilty of attempting to murder Mr Morrison.

They were also found guilty of assaulting the three girls.

The verdicts were returned on the basis that jobless Kidd and labourer Tiffoney, of Crookston in Glasgow, had acted in concert throughout the vicious assault.

As the verdicts were announced, Kidd turned to grin at relatives on the public benches.

Judge Lord Woolman told them they had been found guilty of “a disgraceful series of crimes.”

He said: “You assaulted three females and then you attempted to murder the man who went to their aid.

“The victims went to the T in the Park festival to have a good time. They went with friends to listen to live music and to enjoy themselves.

“They did not go to become involved in mindless assaults.

“They did not expect that one of their number would be stabbed in the back and side with a knife.”

The attempted murder was the first ever at the open-air festival at Balado, in Kinross-shire, which is attended by tens of thousands of fans each year.

The incident, which happened on July 13 last year, brought mayhem to a previously happy evening.

Mr Morrison had just returned to the campsite after watching American rock band Rage Against The Machine when he was attacked by Kidd and Tiffoney.

A month later, when police went to arrest Kidd for the crime, he drew a Samauri sword, threatened to stab four cops and climbed onto the roof of his home in Grampian Way, Barrhead, for a six-hour stand-off.

He was eventually talked down by trained police negotiators.

Streets had to be cordoned off during the siege, which involved 25 officers and used up more than 150 man-hours of police time.

In addition to the T in the Park charges, jurors found Kidd guilty of committing a breach of the peace in relation to the stand-off.

Lord Woolman sentenced Kidd to a further six months imprisonment for the breach of the peace, to be served consecutive to the nine years.

He said Kidd’s conduct when police arrived at his home had been “alarming and unacceptable.”