Ex-girlfriend jailed for attack

TRIO OF THUGS THREW AMMONIA AND STABBED VICTIM IN HIS FLAT

A MAN was attacked in bed then stabbed and sprayed with ammonia by vicious thugs – including his exgirlfriend.

The victim was asleep when he woke to find former lover Shauna Connolly, Paul Smith and Sarah Schonewald in his flat.

A court heard ex-partner Connolly stabbed him in the shoulder while serial brute Smith squirted ammonia from a Fairy Liquid bottle into his face after trying to make him drink it.

Mum-of-one Connolly and Smith have both been jailed, while pregnant university student Schonewald was given a suspended prison sentence. All of them admitted GBH.

Judge Edward Bindloss, at Newcastle Crown Court, said: “Shauna Connolly and the complainant had a relationship in 2015, that may have given rise to a motive for some sort of revenge, it’s not clear.

“The complainant was asleep, he was woken up and taken to the living room where he was stabbed in the shoulder by Connolly with a knife and squirted in the face with ammonia by Smith, something he describes as extremely painful.

“This clearly was and must have been a terrifying incident.”

The court heard the attack took place at the victim’s neighbour’s home, on James Williams Street, Sunderland, where he had slept on March 26 last year.

There was a knock at the door around 6.30am and the victim’s friend answered it and found Connolly and Schonewald there, looking intoxicated. He let them in but didn’t realise Smith had also followed them into the flat.

Prosecutor Michael Bunch said: “Once he had been taken into the living room a knife was produced and that knife was used to stab him.

“Ammonia was then produced and he was initially told to drink from the bottle. When he refused to do so the contents were thrown over him causing, in his words, excruciating pain.”

The victim made his escape after saying he was going to the toilet, fleeing to his aunt’s house nearby.

He was taken to hospital and found to have a 2.4cm deep wound to his upper arm and raised acidity levels in both eyes, which were washed. In a victim impact statement, he said: “This assault has changed my life and I’m scarred for life and I have constant nightmares and flashbacks.”

Connolly, 26, of Lake Road, Houghton-le-Spring, pleaded guilty to GBH on the basis Smith handed her the knife and told her to stab him.