TWO violent brothers who carried out a “nasty, venal and unpleasant” act of “thuggery” on a man in Alexandria have been jailed for assault.

Robert Robinson and Andrew Brown were behind the vicious assault at a house in Craig Avenue on January 30.

The pair were brought to Dumbarton Sheriff Court from custody on Friday to be sentenced after pleading guilty at a previous hearing to repeatedly punching and kicking their victim on the head and body to his injury, while acting with another.

Background reports were provided on both men in time for Friday’s hearing.

But the court was told that Robinson, 27, of Royston Road in Glasgow, was already serving time in jail for another offence – while Brown, 23, of Cranloch Court in Alexandria, was on remand after admitting the assault charge and breaching the terms of a community-based sentence imposed on another matter.

Robinson’s solicitor, Tom Brown, told the court: “Matters have been deferred on numerous occasions.

“He received two years and three months in August, backdated to April 7, with a 12-month supervised release order. His earliest release date is May 22.”

Brown’s solicitor, Mr Murdoch, said his client had been remanded in custody on November 2.

Mr Murdoch said: “He tells me he is currently receiving detox in prison and would like further help. But he was given ample opportunity to comply, and did not.”

Sheriff John Hamilton told the pair: “I was unimpressed by Andrew Brown’s comment [in the report] that suggested somehow this behaviour was justified.

“Regardless of what happened, it was not justified. If we go down that route, we reach a point where the rule of law doesn’t apply any more.

“It was just thuggery. It was a nasty, venal and unpleasant assault on someone clearly physically less able than you.”

Robinson was handed an eight-month jail term, while Brown got six months, backdated to November 2.

Robinson’s previous prison sentence was imposed after he pleaded guilty in July to carrying out a violent assault in Dumbain Crescent in Alexandria.

The victim of that attack was left injured and permanently disfigured as a result of the March 4 incident.

Brown admitted being in possession of an offensive weapon – namely a metal chain – in the course of that same incident.