Teenager jailed over attempted murder of Syrian refugee

A teenager who attempted to murder a Syrian refugee in a “frenzied” racially-aggravated attack has been locked up for more than eight years.

Sean Gorman repeatedly stabbed Shabaz Ali, 25, in an argument about noise at an Edinburgh hostel in the early hours of May 3.

A court heard that Gorman, 18, was “hyper” after downing much of a litre bottle of vodka and taking ecstasy and cocaine prior to the unprovoked attack with a lock-knife.

The teenager was also out on licence from another sentence for a violent attack involving a knife at the time of the offence at the hostel in Upper Gilmore Place.

He later told social workers: “Deep down, I think I did want to stab somebody.”

Gorman, who last month admitted the racially-aggravated murder-bid, returned to the High Court in Edinburgh for sentencing on Friday.

“Deep down, I think I did want to stab somebody.”

Judge Lord Woolman handed him an extended sentence of 11 years and nine months, involving detention for seven years and nine months followed by four years of supervision upon his release from custody.

Gorman was also ordered to begin that sentence when he has finished serving 169 days of the previous sentence from 2017 for assault to severe injury and the danger of life.

The judge told the 18-year-old: “You carried out a frenzied attack on a stranger, Mr Shabaz Ali. You stabbed him six times, five times in the upper chest.

“But you would have been a threat to anyone you came across that night.”

The court heard the wounds sustained by Mr Ali – whose family had fled from Syria to escape persecution – put his life in peril, leaving him needing emergency surgery and intensive care.

“Without the urgent and expert hospital treatment he received, you could have faced a charge of murder,” Lord Woolman warned the attacker.

The court was told the attack has caused Mr Ali serious physical and psychological harm and has had a profound effect on his family.