A chef who left a shoeprint on his own father's face after attacking him because he "kept going on about family stuff" has been jailed for three years.

Frank Mearns was also left with multiple fractures after being assaulted by his son Joseph Mearns during an all day drinking session.

The pair had been drinking together at a bar in Dundee city centre on March 14 before heading back to a block of flats where the incident took place in the early hours of the following morning.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard that a witness found Mearns beating his father senseless after hearing a "commotion" in the close at around 5am.

When the witness, a friend of the accused, managed to drag the 25-year-old off his "unconscious and unresponsive" father and get him back inside the flat he was told "don't stop me".

Medics later found a shoeprint on the victim's face and multiple fractures to his nose and eye sockets.

Mearns was jailed for three years and four months on Wednesday as a sheriff told him: "You subjected your father to a dreadful attack and did enormous damage."

Fiscal depute Nicola Gillespie told Dundee Sheriff Court: "The accused was found punching his father repeatedly to the face and head.

"His friend pulled the accused off and managed to get him inside, where he stated 'don't stop me'.

"He was described as being 'filled with rage' at the time.

"The complainer was still lying on the ground and was unresponsive. with blood on his face and on the ground around him.

"The accused was shortly after found fast asleep on a sofa in the property.

"He was later interviewed and admitted punching, kicking and stamping on his father's head.

"He accepted he was filled with rage and said his father had 'kept going on about family stuff'."

Mearns of Hilltown, Dundee, pleaded guilty on indictment to assaulting Frank Mearns to his severe injury on March 15 this year.

Defence solicitor Larry Flynn said: "The photos of his father's injuries are shocking.

"He had been out drinking with his father before this occurred.

"They have had a difficult relationship and he was raised by his aunt and grandmother."

Sheriff Alastair Brown jailed Mearns for three years four months - reduced from five years for his early guilty plea.

He said: "You were found in a common close standing over your father, punching him repeatedly.

"He was unconscious and unresponsive and you had to be pulled off him.

"He had a footprint on the side of his face, had multiple fractures to his face, his nose and both his eye sockets.

"Stamping on somebody's head is one of the most serious forms of assault that there is.

"I have known it to kill, I have known it to cause serious brain injury.

"The information I have is that you had a difficult relationship with your father and you found him annoying.

"I assume in your favour that that is true - but that goes nowhere towards persuading me that I should step away from the only obvious appropriate sentence, which is a substantial custodial one."