A THUG is facing an extended jail term after a jury found he had stabbed a friend in the side with a knife that the victim said was hidden in a walking stick.

David Cameron, 38, slashed Gary Penman on the neck with the weapon before jabbing it into his ribs during an altercation over some of his property.

Mr Penman staggered away, calling himself an ambulance on his own mobile, before collapsing in a pool of blood in Alva.

Neighbours staunched his wounds with towels before paramedics took him to Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert.

Doctors found the trunk wound had perforated Mr Penman's gall bladder, and he had an emergency operation to remove the damaged organ.

Witness Chelsea Gardner, 18, told Stirling Sheriff Court she had been sitting outside her flat at The Nebit, Alva, on the "warm" night of August 15 this year when Cameron, who lived in the same block, came out shouting to Mr Penman, who was also sitting outside, that he was "going to get him".

Miss Gardner said: "David seemed really angry and frustrated.

"Gary turned round and said to David that he was going to phone the police.

"David pulled out a blade and went for him.

"He went for his face, missed, and went for his neck.

"He then went for his side.

"His arm moved fast.

"He jabbed it in. It wasn't a slash. He jabbed it in."

She said Mr Penman, 41, staggered off, and she followed, finding him collapsed by a phone box with two local men trying to help him.

She said: "There was blood on the ground. The only thing I heard from Gary was 'tell my kids I love them'."

Mr Penman, unemployed, said he had been at Cameron's flat earlier.

He said he had "thought he was a friend", but Cameron had been "properly wasted" on a combination of drugs including Valium and methadone and had a walking stick with a "thin, 13 inch blade" in it.

He said Cameron thought property had gone missing from his flat while he had been in a drug-induced stupor.

He said: "He came bouncing towards me. I remember him saying 'I'm going for your jugular'.

"He went for my neck, and when I raised my right arm to my neck he stuck it right through me."

He said that after he collapsed he remembered saying "tell my kids I love them", adding: "I thought I was dying".

He spent nine days in hospital, and has been left with a large operation scar, post traumatic stress disorder, and digestive problems from the loss of his gall bladder.

After listening to three days of evidence, earlier today a jury of nine men and six women found Cameron guilty of assaulting Mr Penman to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement, and danger of his life.

Cameron had denied the charge, and claimed he had acted in self-defence.

Sheriff William Gilchrist remanded Cameron - said to have a "long schedule of previous convictions" - in custody and deferred sentence until January 10 for a social work report.

He said: "The only reason I am not imposing a sentence of imprisonment today is that I am considering imposing an extended sentence."

Under Scots law, courts can consider a extended sentence in cases where a jail term of four years or more is to be imposed.

An extended sentence allows a convict to be kept under supervision and to be subject to recall for a period following release.