A one-time wannabe model has been jailed for a frenzied attack on a woman who shattered her spine after escaping through a first floor window.
Margaret Williamson inexplicably turned on her friend Rhiannon McKay at her home in Perth’s Cromlix Road.
Williamson kicked and punched her as she lay on the floor, then drew blood by biting down on her nose.
Ms McKay was so terrified she threw herself out of her living room window, landing on the ground some 15ft below and fracturing her spine and pubic bone.
Williamson had denied the assault when she went on trial at Perth Sheriff Court, claiming she was acting in self defence.
But jurors rejected her version of events and took just under three hours to find her guilty of assaulting Ms McKay on March 6 2021, causing her to escape through a window to her severe injury, permanent disfigurement and impairment.
Returning to court for sentencing, Williamson’s solicitor John McLaughlin urged Sheriff William Wood to consider alternatives to jail.
He said his client was turning her life around and expected to land a job as a cleaner for a hotel chain.
Horrors in her mind
The sheriff told Williamson: “It seems that you have had a very troubled upbringing and you don’t have your own problems to seek.
“I also take into account that you have not come to the attention of the police since this incident in March 2021.
“However, set against that is the fact you have two previous convictions for violence and the nature of this charge is of some significance.”
Sheriff Wood added: “You have shown no acceptance or responsibility, you have shown no remorse.
“It can’t be denied that this was a vicious and sustained assault involving punching, kicking and biting, and it caused Ms McKay such terror that she felt obliged to jump from a window in order to escape.
“You can only imagine the horrors that were going through her mind of what she thought might happen to her if she had remained in the room.
“I’m afraid to say, a custodial sentence is inevitable.”
Williamson, of Cromlix Road, was jailed for 20 months.
Screamed for help
Mr McLaughlin said she continued to maintain her denial of the attack but had accepted the jury’s verdict.
“She seems to be now living a law abiding and pro-social life,” he said.
The trial heard how Williamson and Ms McKay – who had known each other for years – were drinking at McKay’s one-bedroom flat with another man, Craig Nixon.
Giving evidence via video, Ms McKay said she could not remember how events unfolded but recalled being assaulted by her former friend.
“She was hitting me. There was kicking and punching – kicking me to the head.
“She bit my nose. There was blood inside my mouth.
“I just remember being terrified, that’s all I can remember feeling.”
She added: “All I can remember is opening the window and screaming for help.
“After that, I can’t remember anything until I woke up in hospital six hours later.”
Model aspirations
Williamson tried to convince jurors that Ms McKay assaulted her after getting upset that a cup with sentimental value had been knocked over.
She said that her victim was uninjured but the court heard evidence from a passing motorist who saw Ms McKay tumbling from the window with her face soaked with blood.
In a 2017 interview with The Courier, Williamson told of her aspirations to be a model and her admiration for singer Katy Perry’s “amazing outfits”.
For the latest court cases across Tayside and Fife, join our Courts Facebook page.
