FESTIVAL ATTACK SOLDIER DODGES PRISON

Squaddie ordered to pay £2k compo

- BY CONNOR GORDON

A SOLDIER who knocked a teenager unconscious in a horror attack at the TRNSMT music festival has avoided jail.

Lewis Gilchrist, 19, punched his 16-year-old victim to the ground at Glasgow Green in July last year.

Gilchrist, who trained with the Parachute Regiment, had become involved in a fight between the boy and an unknown man.

The soldier, of Campbeltown, Argyll, ran away after he was hauled off by a police inspector who had seen the brutal assault.

A doctor claimed the victim, from Patna, Ayrshire, could have died if it wasn't for the intervention of medics at the scene.

Gilchrist was initially charged with attempted murder but pled guilty to assaulting the boy to his injury at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday.