Pregnant woman stabbed with machete at the bells

● Girlfriend came close to dying after Hogmanay attack

A man who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend with a machete and blamed her for the attack in Lanarkshire has been jailed for six years.

Joseph Docherty, 35, stabbed the weapon into 28- year- old Emma Louise Orr’ s left leg below the knee with the handle touching her flesh in the attack on 1 January.

The victim said blood came out of her leg “like a rainbow” and she thought she would die after the attack at her home in View park. The incident happened after Doc her ty had accused his victim of trying to lose weight for a former partner.

He also argued with her over a ticket for a pub event after drinking celebratory New Year champagne.

Docherty, who had previously been jailed for a disfiguring knife attack, had been in a relationship with his victim, who was about two months pregnant, for just over a year.

The couple had been watching TV and drinking champagne to celebrate the New Year before midnight on Hogmanay.

A friend later joined them, but Doc her ty started asking Ms Orr what s he was doing obtaining a ticket for a pub in Bellshill. As a row escalated Docherty bit her on the left cheek and held onto the flesh with his teeth.

He later produced a knife and swung it at her left knee and initially missed before inflicting the damaging blow.

The friend lifted up the injured woman and took her to a car before she was driven to hospital.

A judge told Docherty: “Having carried out this appalling assault, you then told her to ‘ shut up’ and instructed those present that no- one was calling an ambulance.”

Lord Mulholland said: “This was a cowardly and nasty attack on a defenceless, pregnant woman. This is serious domestic violence.” The judge told Doc her ty at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday he would have jailed him for nine years for the crime, but for his early guilty plea.

Doc her ty earlier admitted assaulting his partner to her severe injury, permanent disfigurement and impairment and to the danger of her life by biting her on the face and striking her on the leg with the machete.

The victim was left severely scarred and with a limp. She now requires life - long treatment for circulation issues in the damaged limb.

Defence counsel Derek Ogg QC said Docherty was at a loss to explain the reasons for his attack on Ms Orr.