A vicious thug carried out a savage machete attack in a murder bid on a crime kingpin's brother at a supermarket hours after he received a police visit warning him of threats to his safety.

George Baigrie sliced into the arm of Dale Richardson, the brother of kingpin Mark Richardson, 37, with the fearsome weapon and chased him in aisles of the Tesco store at Gracemount Drive, in Edinburgh, before the victim managed to escape. Shoppers and staff witnessed the horrifying attack and calls were made to emergency services as Baigrie, 42, who was wearing a camouflage snood, left to run to a waiting getaway car.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Richardson, 35, arrived at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary with a serious wound to his left wrist caused by a machete and was transferred by emergency ambulance to St John's Hospital, in Livingston, where he underwent a 10 hour operation to repair injuries. The wound had cut to the bone and caused serious damage to multiple tendons and completely severed a number of nerves and sliced through the ulnar artery.

A jury was told that the severing of the artery could have caused Richardson to bleed to death without medical treatment.