Lavinia Woodward an Oxford University student who stabbed her boyfriend might avoid prison after a judge infers the aspiring heart surgeon is too special.
Lavinia Woodward a 24 year old aspiring heart surgeon who knifed her lover during a drug and drink fueled binge may avoid jail after a judge hinted the Oxford student is too ‘clever’ for prison.
The sentiment comes after Woodward stabbed boyfriend, Thomas Fairclough in the leg with a breadknife along with hurling a laptop, glass and jam jar at him.
Rather than risk the aspiring surgeon’s upwardly trajectory, Judge Ian Pringle suggested that he was open to waiving the usual prison sentence in her case it would damage her career.
Told the Judge: ‘It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off.
‘To prevent this extraordinary able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to, would be a sentence which would be too severe.
‘What you did will never, I know, leave you but it was pretty awful, and normally it would attract a custodial sentence, whether it is immediate or suspended.’
Woodward, who admitted a charge of unlawful wounding at Oxford Crown Court, flew to Barbados after the hearing reported the UK’s sun.
She has published articles in medical journals and will be returning to Oxford’s historic Christ Church college in the next academic year after the college agreed to allow the ‘gifted’ student to return.
Told a friend: ‘They see her as someone worth the risk of having around. She might win a Nobel Prize, she is that intelligent.’
Prosecutor Cathy Olliver said Woodward met her ex, a Cambridge PhD student, on Tinder.
She said on September 30, the night of the attack, they argued and Woodward’s behavior ‘deteriorated’.
When Fairclough threatened to contact Woodward’s mum on Skype she punched him in the face before picking up a bread knife and stabbing him in the leg.
Defending, James Sturman QC said his client’s dreams of becoming a surgeon were ‘almost impossible’ as her conviction would have to disclosed.
The court heard Woodward had a ‘very troubled life,’ battling addiction and suffering abuse by another ex.
Judge Pringle will sentence her on September 25 but she has been slapped with a restraining order and told to stay drug-free and not to re-offend.
Asked to comment on Woodward’s case, a spokesman for Christ Church said, ‘I’m afraid that Christ Church does not comment on the circumstances of individual students.’
Mark Brooks, of the ManKind Initiative which supports male domestic violence victims, said: ‘The judge’s comments are unacceptable. This is domestic abuse against a man and the sympathy should be for him.’
Which is to wonder what ruling the justice system would be leaning towards had the genders been reversed and if Woodward wasn’t part of the upper echelons of social privilege…
