Drug-fuelled attacker left his girlfriend with severe injuries to brain

A DESIGN engineer who left his girlfriend with severe brain injuries after a drug-fuelled attack has been jailed.

Samuel Farley, 21, inflicted at least 27 blows on Esther Garrity as they walked home from a night out in Middlesbrough.

Miss Garrity, a teenage fashion student at Manchester Metropolitan University, lost teeth and suffered a badly broken jaw and severe brain swelling.

Farley was jailed for 12 years and six months at Teesside Crown Court for the horrific attack and two counts of supplying cocaine.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC said: “This case effectively illustrates the dangers of drug taking. This is, on any view, a tragic case, for it involves the fact that two young hitherto vibrant and talented young people have been blighted. Blighted, of course, Samuel Farley, by your actions on that night, effectively blighted by the drugs you chose to take.”

He added: “You would not have become involved in this horrendous attack were it not for the drugs you chose to take.”

Miss Garrity’s injuries were so bad her head swelled to three times its normal size and her father could not recognise her when he saw her in hospital. A paramedic who attended the scene said her injuries were the worst he had seen anyone survive. She spent 108 days in hospital and continues to suffer the consequences of the attack in April.

Farley, of Melbourne Close, Middlesbrough, had taken cocaine, ketamine and LSD. Sam Green QC, mitigating, said the drugs caused the defendant, normally a loving and caring boyfriend, to behave psychotically.