THE partner of an alleged one-punch serious assault victim has told a court that she feared her boyfriend would be 'hurt again' by his stranger 'attacker' as he lay unconscious on the ground in a pool of blood.

Lewis Millar, 22, is accused of striking the man to the head to his severe injury, permanent impairment and to the danger of his life during an incident at a taxi rank in Greenock.

A trial before a jury of eight men and seven women at the town's sheriff court heard this week that the 31-year-old alleged victim suffered a broken nose and a bleed to the brain and has lost his sense of smell following the incident in Roxburgh Street.

During questioning by procurator fiscal depute Raeesa Ahmed, the witness - who had been with her partner and friends at the former Nicolson's Bar on May 2, 2021 - said they had left the pub at around 10pm that night and tried to get a taxi at the nearby rank.

The woman said the couple were at the front of the queue and her partner had been talking to people behind them while she was on the phone.

She said: "I heard a commotion behind me and that was when I turned around.

"Somebody shouted 'What did you do that for?'

"There were lots of raised voices and it was loud and panicked.

"I saw him [her partner] on the floor. I didn't realise it was him at first."

The woman broke down at the witness stand as she described the 'pretty bad' condition she found her boyfriend in and the 'amount of blood coming from his head'.

She added: "One of the women who were helping was a nurse and I could tell she was panicking.

"He was completely unconscious and she put him in the recovery position.

"Two young boys were also there and one of them was standing near him, pacing back and forth.

"He had his chest out and looked angry, I thought he was going to kick him and hurt him again."

The witness said she grabbed the male from behind and moved him aside before attending to her stricken partner.

He was rushed by ambulance to Inverclyde Royal before being taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to be seen by specialist doctors.

Despite a CT scan revealing swelling and a brain haemorrhage, he did not require surgery and was discharged after further checks.

He returned to hospital around a week later with severe headaches and was later prescribed steroids for his symptoms.

The court heard that a doctor told him at a follow-up appointment that he had suffered significant injuries and that they could have been fatal.

The man, who was forced to stay off work for more than three months after the alleged assault, told the court that he had been out drinking all day and could not remember how he had sustained his injuries besides brief flashbacks of being in an ambulance and in hospital.

Solicitor Paul Keenan, representing Millar, of Weir Street, claimed the alleged victim's recollection of events may be blurred as a result of his alcohol intake on the day, and submitted a special defence of self-defence on his client's behalf.

The trial before Sheriff Neil Kinnear continues.