By Aileen Robertson

A NINE-YEAR-OLD Fife boywho was stabbed in the face while trying to save his mother from a murder bid was yesterday praised.

Lord Brodie said Nathan Thomson was an “extremely courageous young man” as he jailed the attacker at the High Court in Glasgow.

The judge sentenced Hugh Clark (35) of Carson Place, Rosyth, to eight and a half years.

Clark had stabbed Nathan’s mother Ena Thomson no fewer than eight times on the head and body when the boy leapt onto his back.

But Clark shook him off and confronted him before stabbing him with a kitchen knife.

It happened at the family home in Rosyth on November 2, of last year. Clark had entered the house at 10pm, after Mrs Thomson and her two children had gone to bed, and attacked her knowing the youngsters were in the house.

“It appears to me that Nathan can be described as an extremely courageous young man who was quite seriously injured in the course of trying to protect his mother from what you have admitted was a murderous attack by a grown man armed with a knife,” said Lord Brodie.

Last month, Clark pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Mrs Thomson (33) and the assault to injury and permanent disfigurement of her son, Nathan.

According to the psychiatric report prepared for yesterday’s sentencing, Clark was not mentally ill.

And although he had 10 previous convictions, none of them were for violent offences.

Lord Brodie described the case as “the most serious sort of attack, short of killing, that one can imagine.”

He said, “I have no alternative but to impose a sentence of imprisonment and a substantial sentence.”

After Clark’s sentence was announced, Detective Sergeant Ian Paterson, who led the investigation for Fife Constabulary, said the consequences of Clark’s attack could have been worse if it had not been for Nathan’s intervention.

He said, “We welcome Clark’s conviction today.

“This was a cowardly and unprovoked attack, which left Mrs Thomson with severe injuries.

“Had it not been for the bravery of her son, who himself was injured in the attack, the consequences would have undoubtedly been worse.”

On the night of the attempted murder, Clark confronted Mrs Thomson’s husband at The Yard pub in Rosyth.

When the case was heard at the High Court in Edinburgh last month, advocate-depute Alex Prentice QC described how Clark, on leaving the pub, shouted, “I’m going to murder your wife and I’ll get you later.”

But the husband did not hear the remark.

Later, when she was at home, Mrs Thomson heard a noise on the stairs.

Mr Prentice said, “A few moments later the bedroom door opened and she saw the accused in the doorway holding a knife.”

She shouted at him to get out of her house.

Her son and daughter were wakened by the noise and came out of their bedrooms into the hallway.

Clark began to struggle with Mrs Thomson and pulled her out into the hallway and began stabbing her.

Her 12-year-old daughter, Shannon, panicked and locked herself in her room.

Mr Prentice said, “The boy remained in the hallway and jumped onto the accused’s back to try to get him to stop what he was doing, as by this time the victim had been stabbed approximately eight times to the head and body.

“Clark shook the boy off his back and confronted him and stabbed him once to the face with the knife.

“The woman was not aware this had taken place as she was lying on the floor,” said the prosecutor.

The injured mother and son managed to get downstairs but found Clark had locked the front door of their home.

They went through to the kitchen with Clark following them.

He lay on the floor and put the knife to his chest and told the woman to stab him.

But she ignored him and got her child out of the house.

She arrived at a neighbour’s wearing only underwear and bleeding heavily from her face and side.

Her son was also bleeding heavily from a facial injury.

The neighbour went out and saw the daughter at her bedroom window.

The hysterical girl was shouting, “My mum’s been stabbed, my mum’s been stabbed.”

He told her to jump and he caught her as she did and took her to be reunited with her mother and brother.

Ambulance staff arrived and the woman was taken to Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline, where it was decided she needed urgent surgery.