A former Scottish health board manager who masterminded a gang which carried out random attacks on strangers was jailed this week for four-and-a-half years.

Clive Winter, former secretary of Lothian health board, was found guilty by a jury at Edinburgh High Court of three street attacks and a charge of conspiring to break into the home of a health board worker.

He believed he would never get caught because of his position, it was alleged by one of two former health board employees in his 'terror team'.

Mr Winter, of Comely Bank, Edinburgh, was convicted of assaulting Tony Chan by pistol-whipping him with a fake gun in his home in September 1996.

He was further convicted of taking part in a random attack on newspaper journalist John Brunsdon in December 1996 and taking part in an assault on a stranger in January this year.

He was also found guilty of conspiring with Paul Davidson to break into the home of health board worker David Smith, stealing keys and duplicating them and compiling a list of items to be stolen from the house with the intention of committing theft.

Two Lothian health board workers, Paul Davidson, a former supply services manager, and Leslie Malone, a management services officer, testified against Mr Winter. They claimed he masterminded the random attacks on strangers in Edinburgh and they were part of his terror team.

Mr Davidson is serving a three-year jail sentence imposed at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year for his part in the attacks.

Mr Davidson said that, while he and Mr Malone were driving in Edinburgh with Mr Winter, he ordered them to get out of a car and attack a stranger. He said he and Mr Malone got out, knocked the man to the ground and drove off leaving him lying there.

Mr Winter denied attacking strangers 'for fun'. He claimed a replica gun similar to the one used to pistol whip Mr Chan had been planted in his filing cabinet at the health board offices.

Passing sentence, Judge Lord Macfadyen told Mr Winter he was convicted of 'three episodes of deliberate, gratuitous violence unmitigated as far as anyone can tell by any comprehensible explanation'.

Lothian health board general manager Trevor Jones said: 'I was shocked and disgusted by the actions of Clive Winter, which conflict so much with the ethics of the NHS and the health board.'