‘Finish him, finish him,’ screamed Smith as her poor victim was beaten, stabbed and strangled
GEORGINA Smith was part of a gang that tortured a vulnerable man then beat him to death in what a judge described as a ‘scandalous, disgraceful and horrific attack’.
Along with two male accomplices, Smith battered 30-year-old Scott Blackwood with a barbell, caving in his cheekbones and an eye socket. The gang stabbed him 13 times, bit him, strangled him, then tied him by the neck to a bath, doused him in turps and tried to set fire to him.
Overall, the victim suffered 72 separate injuries, ranging from broken bones to chemical burns.
A pathologist later said the severity of the head injuries Mr Blackwood sustained was usually only encountered in car crash victims.
The attack had no clear motive – beyond an apparent desire to inflict harm on a man the gang had previously bullied.
While her two accomplices were given life sentences for murder, Smith – aged 22 at the time – was sentenced to 12 years in prison for culpable homicide.
The sickening orgy of violence took place in July 2013 in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, and the shocking details of the crime emerged during a trial at the High Court in Glasgow in 2014.
The assault began at the home of one of the attackers. However, the gang moved Mr Blackwood to his own house halfway through the beating – to avoid covering their own property in blood.
The trial heard the victim had been bullied by his attackers on numerous occasions before the fatal assault, including an incident involving Smith threatening to pour a mix of sugar and boiling water on him.
After the murder, the trio went back to the house where the attack began to clean their clothes in an attempt to remove any evidence they could.
One witness told the court he had walked into the house as the horrific scene unfolded – and saw the two men beating Mr Blackwood with a barbell while Smith was shouting ‘Finish him, finish him’.
The witness said that by the time he arrived at the scene Mr Blackwood ‘could have already been dead’, as he was unresponsive and not moving.
After the attack, Smith tried to conceal her involvement by writing on Facebook how she hoped to see Mr Blackwood alive and well again, and promising to find and jail his killer.
But at the end of a five-week trial, a jury found Smith guilty of culpable homicide. Sentencing her to 12 years behind bars, judge Lord McEwan said: ‘This was a scandalous, disgraceful and horrific attack on a young man, including what amounted to torture.’ He continued: ‘In your evidence you said you loved him, well each man kills the thing he loves and that is what you have done.’
He then noted that the three victim impact statements from Mr Blackwood’s family revealed that the consequences of his death for them were ‘dire to put it mildly.’
The judge went on to excuse jurors from service for the next ten years because details of the case had been so harrowing.
At the time Mr Blackwood’s parents Marion and John criticised the sentence, saying it ‘wasn’t long enough’, adding: ‘What they did was horrible.’
Smith’s brother, Craig Moriarty, said at the time of the trial that Georgina was ‘sick in the head’ and that it had been ‘only a matter of time before she killed someone’. After sentencing he said: ‘She is a wild animal, and dangerous. I don’t think 12 years is even nearly enough for taking a life.’
‘Scandalous and horrific attack on young man’