Man who gouged out ex-partner's eye jailed for 12 years

A man who gouged out his ex-girlfriend's eye and threw it away was jailed for 12 years today.

Francis Murphy was told by a judge that his attacks on Natalie Farrell were "almost medieval in their barbarity".

Murphy, 26, had previously been found guilty by a jury of two charges of attempting to murder Miss Farrell.

Both attacks took place at Dalfield Court in Dundee on May 26 this year.

Murphy has admitted gouging out his victim's eye, but he denied trying to kill her, and the case went to trial.

Sentencing Murphy at the High Court in Edinburgh today, temporary judge John Morris QC told him the crimes would "cause any right-thinking person to recoil in horror".

He said only a substantial prison sentence was appropriate adding: "You will go to prison for 12 years."

Murphy, whose address was given as Perth prison, was found guilty of attempting to murder Ms Farrell in an eighth-floor flat in Dalfield Court.

During that attack he repeatedly punched and kicked her on the head and body and attempted to gouge her eye out with a metal hook, before placing his fingers into the socket of her eye and gouging it out.

As part of the same attack, Murphy placed his hands around his ex-girlfriend's throat and compressed her neck, causing her to lose consciousness.

The other assault took place on an eighth-floor common landing at the block of flats.

Murphy was convicted of attempting to throw Ms Farrell over the balcony, pulling and detaching her eyeball and then throwing it over the balcony.

The attacks caused his victim permanent disfigurement and permanent impairment.

Defence lawyer Iain Paterson told the court there was very little that could be said about the offences.

But he said Murphy had had "difficulty coming to terms" with them.

He told the court: "Mr Murphy was in a relationship with the victim of these matters for some years.

"His emotions became entangled as a consequence of drink, drugs and, I suppose, depravity too.

"All these things together led him to undertake an action it is difficult for any individual to come to terms with and he's going to have to sit in a prison cell for a number of years and take stock of what he's done."