Award winning chef avoids jail after vicious Perth attack
An international chef who attacked a rival with a cricket bat has walked free from court after telling a sheriff his restaurant would shut down if he was jailed.
An international chef who attacked a rival with a cricket bat has walked free from court after telling a sheriff his restaurant would shut down if he was jailed.
Award winning chef William Deans was ordered to carry out 240 hours unpaid work after being found guilty of carrying out a vicious attack on businessman Gary Cummings.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Deans he may be able to use his culinary skills to help others "less fortunate" than him during the community payback order arranged by social workers.
"I found you guilty of assaulting an individual whilst armed with a weapon. It was used to repeatedly strike him on the head and body in circumstances where you had 'lost it'," the sheriff said.
"It may be that your skills might be used to benefit persons in the community who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances."
Mr Cummings had told the trial he thought Deans was going to kill him with a cricket bat during an attack sparked by a dispute over a parking space.
High profile chef Deans was found guilty of attacking Mr Cummings after he conceded he had chased him out of his packed restaurant, leapt over a bin and "clobbered" him with the bat.
Letting manager Mr Cummings, 45, said Deans jumped over a wheelie bin and struck him "five or six times" with the bat outside his restaurant.
Mr Cummings, whose business is next door to Deans Restaurant in Perth, said the chef was foaming at the mouth with anger and appeared as if he was on drugs.
A trial at Perth Sheriff Court was told that Mr Cummings arrived at his office to find Deans parked in his space and went to the restaurant to ask for it to be moved.
He said: "Within a few seconds there was a face of aggression towards me from Mr Deans. There was a heated exchange. It was completely uncalled for.
"He was effing and blinding and screaming and shouting. I was quite taken aback. He then picked up a cricket bat and said 'I've got the right thing for somebody like you.'
"He started to swing it. He was swinging the bat above his head. I was so startled, you don't expect that to happen. I grabbed a bin to protect myself. I was terrified.
"Mr Deans jumped over the bin and attacked me with the cricket bat. I turned to the side to try and get away and that's when he hit me. I was struck three times on the head.
"I was struck on the arm and back as well. I think it was maybe four, five or six. I thought he was going to kill me. My wife was screaming. I was fighting for my life.
"He was foaming at the mouth and had completely lost the plot. I had masses of bruises to my head. My head was flat for a few days. My eyesight was blurred for a few weeks and I've still got ringing in my ears.
"He was extremely aggressive. I had been battered round the head five or six times and was dazed and concussed. This started over an argument over a parking space."
Mr Cummings said that as he lost his footing he managed to pull Deans to the ground and pinned him down while his wife Julie, 44, took the cricket bat away.
She told the court: "The side of his face and head was swollen and there was a kind of flat bit round the back of his head."
Deans, who won gold for Scotland at the culinary Olympics, denied the attack on 7 June last year and claimed he was acting in self-defence.
The 53-year-old former Scottish Chef of the Year denied using the cricket bat to repeatedly strike and injure Mr Cummings on the head and body near Deans Restaurant in Perth.
But the sheriff found Deans, Glenorchil View, Auchterarder, Perthshire, guilty.
Deans had said: "I clobbered him with the bat once. It was left by a customer years ago. I thought 'I'm going to have to protect myself, my life's in danger here.'"
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said today: "The consequence to his business of a prison sentence would be significant. It would close."
Deans formerly worked at the Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire and was head chef at the Buttery in Glasgow for a number of years.
He won Young Master Chef of the Year and was named Scottish Chef of the Year in 1995, as well as being runner-up in British Chef of the Year in 1996.
While at the Buttery, he was named Restaurant Chef of the Year by the Craft Guild of Chefs. He also won the ultimate accolade of AA Restaurant of the Year in 2004.
He lectured for seven years in Glasgow and during that period represented Scotland several times in the culinary Olympics, winning gold and a number of other medals.