A Fife man who throttled a woman until she blacked out before laughing at her has been jailed for 44 months.
Unemployed Lee Spence, 22, was originally charged with attempted murder but admitted a reduced charge of assaulting his victim, a care assistant, to her injury and danger of her life in an attack on March 2 and 3 this year at Kirk Drive, Leslie.
The sustained violence left a doctor noting 16 separate injuries, including haemorrhaging in her eyes consistent with strangulation, when she was seen at Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline.
Judge Lady Carmichael told Spence at the High Court in Edinburgh there was no alternative to custody because the assault was to the danger of the victim’s life and involved hitting her on the head with a metal pole and restricting her breathing until she passed out.
She said he would have faced a five-and-a-half-year jail term but for his early guilty plea.
Blacked out
Advocate depute Margaret Barron said the care assistant, who was 20 at the time, was at Spence’s home when he became agitated and aggressive after drinking.
He began shouting at her and called her “a slag” and threatened to kill her before he grabbed a vacuum cleaner pole and beat her on the head with it.
He began punching her on the head and body and then grabbed her by the neck and squeezed tightly.
“She stated that ‘after a few minutes everything went black and the next thing I remember I woke up and he was crying’,” said the prosecutor.
The advocate depute said the victim did not know for how long she lost consciousness.
Later Spence grabbed her again by the neck.
He smashed a glass against a door before stabbing her on the leg with shards and then shouted at her: “Look what you made me do.”
Laughed at victim
Miss Barron said the woman had later told him that she had a sore head.
“He replied ‘that’s where I hit you with the hoover’ and started laughing at her.”
Work colleagues later noted that she was injured and police were contacted.
Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin said Spence intended to make efforts to address substance misuse and anger management.
He told the court: “He has a low tolerance of boredom.”
Spence was told that he would be placed on a supervised release order for a year when he will be under the supervision of the local authority after serving his custodial sentence.
