A carer stabbed his upstairs neighbour in the chest on Hogmanay because he had been playing music too loudly.

Greig Sharp, 26, now of Harris Court, Alloa, had been complaining to Clackmannanshire Council for more than two years about "constant noise" from William Martin's flat in Schawpark Avenue, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire.

He snapped in the early hours of December 31, 2016, after Mr Martin, 25, his girlfriend, and Mr Martin's 12-year-old sister decided to go out for a drive-through takeaway at 2.10am after playing music for more than four hours.

Sharp was jailed for three years at Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

The court was told that after they trooped down the common stair, Sharp grabbed a knife from his kitchen and went outside, shouting: "What's all the noise about?"

Then when Mr Martin approached because he said he didn't want a screaming match in the street, Sharp attacked him with the blade.

Prosecutor Adrian Fraser said Sharp had stood on the disabled access ramp to the flat he shared with his diabetic dad and plunged the blade into Mr Martin's chest.

He later told police he'd wanted to kill him "for the longest time".

Mr Fraser told the court: "Mr Martin said that he didn't know he had been stabbed at first but put his hand to his chest and felt the blood."

Mr Martin went to his car and told his girlfriend he had been stabbed, and asked her to take him to hospital.

She drove him straight to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital, 13 miles away, where doctors found a single bleeding wound in his chest wall. The court heard that luckily it was not life-threatening.

Back at the scene in Schawpark Avenue, Sharp woke his dad and told him: "I've stabbed Wullie". Then he went to the kitchen sink and calmly washed the blood off the blade.

Mr Fraser said when police, alerted by Mr Martin's girlfriend, arrived at the common close they found Sharp's garden gate and the disabled access ramp stained with Mr Martin's blood.

Sharp was arrested and told police he had been in his bedroom on his computer with his headphones on when the noise from the flat upstairs became so loud he thought Mr Martin was having a party.

He told police: "I lost it. I lost the heid. It was just inevitable. If it hadn't been myself it would have been my father. For the last four days they've been playing loud music."

He added that he had got the knife from the kitchen "on impulse" and hid it up his sleeve before going out to confront Mr Martin.

Sharp pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Martin to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement in the early hours of December 31 last year.

Nuala Devlin, defending, said Clackmannanshire Council had a record of noise complaints by the Sharp household about Mr Martin's household going back more than two years.

She said Sharp, a carer for his father with no previous convictions, had later described the stabbing as "surreal".

Imposing the three-year jail term, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told Sharp that no sentence other than a custodial sentence was appropriate in view of the "very serious offence".

He also imposed a 12 month post-release supervision order, which he said was necessary to protect the public from serious harm.

He said one of the factors in his decision to impose post-release supervision was Sharp's reply to the police question "Did you want to kill him?" which was "Yes, for the longest time".

Sharp showed no emotion as he was handcuffed and led to the cells.