A YOUTH who assaulted a man in Dunfermline Bus Station avoided custody this week but was warned future offending would see him in detention.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared for sentencing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court last Wednesday.

He had previously admitted that, while acting with other juveniles at the bus station on June 23, he assaulted a man by punching him on the head, causing him to fall to the ground, kicked and punched him on the head and body, causing him to roll under a safety barrier and fall onto the roadway and into the path of a car to his injury.

He also assaulted a woman by slapping her on the face at a property in Canon Lynch Court on June 23. 

On June 4, at a social work hostel in Kirkcaldy, he acted in a racially-aggravated manner which caused, or was intended to cause, alarm and distress to a person by shouting, swearing and making racial remarks.

He also assaulted him by repeatedly punching him to the head to his injury.

Solicitor Sarah Meehan said her client, who now lives in Kirkcaldy, had been released from a term of detention recently which had made him realise it was not somewhere he wanted to be at the age of 16.

"Clearly, both complaints are for very serious offences and were committed when he was under the influence of alcohol," she said.

"He seems to recognise that when he was consuming alcohol to excess, it has led him to appear before the court on a number of occasions. 

"Since his release from custody, he has not touched alcohol. His time in custody has done much to focus him on where he wants to go. Polmont is not somewhere he wants to be."

Sheriff Charles Macnair said he was prepared to give the youth a non-custodial sentence but warned him that if he continued to offend, he would be back in detention.

"It is up to you," he told him. "I can only do so much. It seems to me you are in need of very significant structure."

He placed him on a community payback order with a two-year supervision requirement.

The youth will also have to do 202 hours of unpaid work within six months and pay £250 of compensation to the victim from the Kirkcaldy assault.