The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Man jailed over brutal baseball bat attack on woman and boy
Sheriff says victims’ nineminute 999 call was the most harrowing he had ever heard played to a jury
A man who told his victim “I can’t go to jail” after he smashed his way into her Fife home in the dead of night and viciously attacked her and her son was yesterday jailed for almost four years.
William Corstorphine crashed through a window at the woman’s home in St Andrews at 3.30am on September 3 last year armed with a baseball bat and a knife before climbing the stairs and starting his brutal assault.
The whole attack was captured on a nine-minute long 999 call – described by a sheriff as among the most “harrowing” he had ever heard.
He first battered a 14-year-old boy, repeatedly hitting him with the bat as he lay defenceless on the first-floor landing.
Corstorphine then turned on the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, raising the bat above his head.
She grabbed on to the handle with both hands – telling a jury at Dundee Sheriff Court how she feared that if she let go Corstorphine would kill her.
He then pinned her to the ground, pulled her hair – removing a clump – and smashing her in the face and on the body again and again with clenched fists, leaving her covered in bruises following the assault.
At one stage, Corstorphine asked her “who have you been sh ***** g tonight?” and reached under her nightclothes, “forcibly handling her private parts”.
The woman told the court how as police burst into the house to put an end to the attack Corstorphine sat crying on her bed, moaning: “I can’t go to jail.”
And during his own evidence he wept, branded police “liars”, and claimed he had not “punched” his victim – but had instead “pounded” her with his fists.
Yesterday a sheriff jailed Corstorphine for three years and 10 months, banned him from going near the woman or her son for 10 years, and told him he had “violated her home and violated her person”.
During a three-day trial at the court the woman told how she feared for her life during the attack.
She said: “I thought he was going to kill me – he said he was going to kill me.
“At the end I was seeing stars – you can hear it on the 999 call, he was calming and the police were in the house. “He was saying ‘I can’t go to jail’.” She told how she and her son were awoken by the sound of smashing glass on the ground floor of their home and both went to the top of the stairs to investigate.
The woman called 999 as Corstorphine came up the stairs, where he launched his sustained assault.
Giving evidence in his own defence, Corstorphine wept as he recalled his version of the attack.
When asked if his victim had grabbed the baseball bat to stop him striking her, he said: “Had I come in with the bat raised I very much doubt she would have been able to stop me.”
Corstorphine, 55, a prisoner at HMP Perth, denied five charges on indictment of possessing a knife, behaving in a threatening and abusive manner, assaulting the boy and woman and breaching bail.
He admitted possessing a knife, threats, bail breach and assaulting the boy minutes before a jury was sent to consider its verdict – but maintained his not guilty plea to attacking the woman.
A jury took an hour to convict him of that charge.
Defence solicitor Douglas Williams said: “He invaded their privacy, assaulted them both and must have caused them extreme fear and distress. “Only he is to blame for all of that. “He is and has become the author of his own misfortune and accepts he is going to receive a custodial sentence.”
Sheriff Alastair Brown said: “I have over many years listened to recordings and seen videos of assaults taking place.
“The recording of what happened in that home that night, in particular some of the things you said about her dying that night, were as harrowing as I have known played to a jury.”