A DALMUIR teenager who was detained in a young offenders’ institute for his part in a vicious attack on a stranger on a train almost four years ago is back behind bars.

Darren Murray was handed an 18-month sentence for his role in an incident on board a train between Westerton and Bearsden stations on December 21, 2015.

He assaulted his victim on board the ScotRail service by repeatedly punching him on the head, knocking him to the ground and repeatedly kicking him on the body.

When he was jailed, Murray - who was aged just 15 when he carried out the attack - was also told he would be the subject of a “supervised release order” (SRO) for a further nine months after he regained his freedom.

But Murray, now 19, was back in court on Friday for punishment after he pleaded guilty to breaching the terms of that SRO by failing to keep an appointment with his social worker at the end of April - with more than two-thirds of the order still to run.

He was tracked down by police and remanded in custody for sentencing after being brought to court.

The teenager’s lawyer, Rebecca Houston, told Dumbarton Sheriff Court: “He fully accepts he breached the order, and he is not seeking to make any excuse for the missed appointments.

“Early on in the order, he was engaging and doing fairly well.

“But he has admitted that he was using alcohol, got bored and stopped engaging.

“Once he realised he was in breach of the supervised release order, he effectively ran.

“He knows that doesn’t work, given that he has come here today from Polmont [Scotland’s national young offenders’ institution]. It’s all his own fault.”

Ms Houston said Murray had established a good relationship with the social worker supervising him on the order, whom he described as “brand new”.

“He has agreed that he needs to address his mental health problems and his misuse of drugs, and also to get into employment,” Ms Houston continues.

“He seems to be an intelligent young man, but he has never had a focus.”

Asking Sheriff Simon Pender to impose a community payback order as punishment for the SRO breach, Ms Houston said: “If he didn’t comply, he knows perfectly well that custody would be the only option open to the court.

“Since he was released in February, there has been no further offending, apart from the breach.

“His period on remand has brought it home to him that he simply has to comply.”

Alongside Murray, who was listed in court papers as a resident of West Court in Dalmuir, two other men had a role in the 2015 incident.

Brian Moorehead, now aged 29, of Tallant Road in Drumchapel, left another man injured after hitting him on the head with a bottle and repeatedly punching him on the head.

And Liam Reilly, now 21, of Whitevale Street in Glasgow, behaved in a threatening or abusive manner by shouting, swearing, making threats of violence and lewd remarks, and chasing passengers from the train.

Sheriff Pender told Murray: “The sentence originally imposed was for a serious charge involving a wholly unprovoked attack, in which you punched the complainer to the head and face and knocked him to the ground to his injury.

“It was committed in the course of a horrendous course of offending by a number of your co-accused.

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“The supervised release order was imposed to protect the public from serious harm at your hand, and the social work report identifies a high risk of you offending further.

“In all the circumstances I have concluded that the appropriate course of action is to return you to detention.”

Murray was told he would serve a six-month sentence - only slightly less than the time left on the SRO when it was breached.