A man who tried to murder his elderly wheelchair-bound mother in a drink-fuelled attack on New Year’s Day has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

During the assault Bruce Davis (53) tried to strangle Thomasina McAskill, known as Chrissy, with her own jumper in her own home.

After surviving the attack, the 78-year-old said: “I thought he was going to kill me. He seemed hell-bent on it.”

• Inverness man deliberately ‘endangered’ his mother’s life, police Scotland say

A judge told Davis at the High Court in Edinburgh: “Your mother was an elderly woman who was in a wheelchair. You inflicted serious injuries on her.”

Lord Summers said: “In passing sentence I am forced to take into account the fact that the victim of this assault was his own mother.”

The judge noted that at the time of the attempted murder on January 1 last year, David was living with the victim at her home in Inverness.

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Davis had previously denied attempted murder but was found guilty of the offense following a trial at Inverness High Court.

During the attack, the victim, who has since died, was repeatedly kicked in the body by her son, who grabbed her by the hair and prevented her from breathing. He also threw furniture at him.

Following Ms McAskill’s death, statements made following the attempted murder were used as evidence at Davis’ trial. In one of them she said: “I thought he was trying to strangle me. I was terrified.”

Concerned neighbors called police to their home in Smithton Villas, Inverness, and two officers saw Davis through a window of the house with an arm around his mother’s neck.

His hands were still stained with blood when he went to let them in and his mother told them “he hit me” and pointed to her son.

Davis shouted, “Someone called the police because they think I assaulted you.” His mother replied: “And rightly so, because that’s how it is.”

A paramedic who was called to the scene said the victim told him that “her son had lost control and attacked her.”

In a statement given to police at the hospital after the attempted murder, she said her son was drinking vodka before he got up, threw her to the floor and began kicking and hitting her with a broken table leg.

She said: “He had never attacked me before. I couldn’t get away from him. I don’t want him to be around me again. I’m terrified of him.”

Davis claimed he fell on top of his mother and said, “I would never intentionally hurt my mother.”

The victim was left bleeding and bruised after the attack and suffered fractures to his jaw, leg and ribs.

Defense solicitor Graeme Brown said Davis raised four children but when they began to leave he felt redundant. Their situation worsened with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.

Brown said: “He drank up to a bottle of vodka a day and that became his life at the time.”

He added: “Hopefully he will be in a better position when he is finally released.”

Brown told the court that a custodial sentence imposed on Davis when he was a teenager was listed as a conviction for attempted murder, but Davis believed that was wrong, even though it was an assault.

Davis followed the sentencing process via video link to prison and was told his prison sentence will be backdated to January last year, when he was first arrested.

View our court reporting fact sheet here