Student who stabbed man ‘may be expelled’: Oxford

LONDON: Oxford University has said there is “no guarantee” that the medical student who stabbed her boyfriend in a drug-fuelled rage will be able to return to her studies.

Aspiring heart surgeon Lavinia Woodward admitted to a charge of unlawful wounding at Oxford Crown Court after she stabbed her boyfriend in the leg before hurling a laptop, glass and a jam jar at him at Christ Church College in Oxford.

It had been suggested that Oxford would allow the 24-year-old to resume her studies.

However, Christ Church has since revealed that it warned Woodward that “any more drug-taking, or misconduct of any other kind, would indeed result in expulsion” after it was discovered she had been taking cocaine last September, The Times newspaper reported.

She went on to stab boyfriend Thomas Fairclough, who she had met on the dating app Tinder, in a drug and drink-fuelled row.

A university spokesman told The Times that comments suggesting she could resume her studies “were the judge’s not the college’s”.

They added that there was “no guarantee of a return” and emphasised “the context is obviously extremely serious.”

It comes after judge Ian Pringle said he would be willing to take an “exceptional” course and defer her sentencing so as not to prevent her from entering the medical profession.

“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.”

However the decision by the judge has been heavily criticised, with many questioning whether the same action would have been taken if the defendant had come from a less privileged background.

Woodward will be sentenced on Sept 25 and has been issued with a restraining order and told to be drug-free. – The Independent