A MAN has appeared in court accused of carrying out an attack with a machete in a Dalmuir street.

Philip Smith, 26, is alleged to have pursued a man in Dunswin Avenue and elsewhere while holding a machete, kicking him on the body, causing him to fall to the ground and then striking him on the body to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement on February 21 last year.

A second man, 28-year-old Sean Coleman, faces the same charge, though Mr Coleman was not present when the case called at Dumbarton Sheriff Court.

Prosecutors also allege that both men carried out a separate assault on the same man in nearby Stewart Street on the same day by chasing him, grabbing hold of him and hitting him with a machete.

Mr Coleman, of Overtoun Court, and Mr Smith, who was listed in court papers as an inmate at Greenock prison, are also charged with being in possession of an offensive weapon.

Mr Smith faces further charges arising from a separate incident in which he is alleged to have assaulted a different man, and a woman, in Stewart Street on January 19, 2020.

That charge alleges that Mr Smith punched the woman repeatedly on the head, and that he punched the man on the head, knocking him against a wall and causing him to lose consciousness, leaving him injured and putting his life in danger.

Mr Smith’s solicitor, Marisa Borland, said her client was maintaining his pleas of not guilty to all the charges.

Gordon Ritchie, defending Mr Coleman, who also denies the charge against him, said he had been told his client had tested positive for Covid and had been told to self-isolate.

Fiscal depute Meghan Glancey told the court the Crown was ready to go to trial, but said that no date could be fixed because of a lack of facilities for Covid-safe trials with multiple accused.

The case was continued to a further procedural hearing in March.