Drink-addled woman thought she’d stabbed Sutton man but missed when blade slid between his arm and chest
A woman who thought she'd stabbed a man in Sutton with a carving knife but missed when the blade passed between his arm and chest was suffering from alcohol-induced hallucinations.
Litia Larua was “fuelled by alcohol and vindictiveness” when she deliberately armed herself with “the most dangerous knife she could find” and arranged to meet her intended victim on Elder Street late on December 28, last year.
"You lashed out with that weapon aiming, you admit, for his chest,” Judge Stuart Rafferty KC told her at Nottingham Crown Court.
“He moved aside and the blow passed between his arm and his chest. You thought you had killed him or hurt him and you left the scene.
"If that knife had struck him, potentially you could have killed him because you set out to hit him as hard as you could and you admit by your plea you intended to cause him really serious injury.”
The court heard Larua, who had been drinking two bottles of wine plus vodka, panicked, rang 999, and told police she had just stabbed a man and thrown away the knife.
She said she intended to stab him much harder and kill him because he had been supplying drugs to her partner.
Stephen Kemp, mitigating, said she was suffering from alcohol-induced hallucinations and paranoia at the time.
“She has accepted she is an alcoholic,” he said. “She is someone who could not avoid alcohol rather than someone who chose to drink and knew there was a risk she might become violent.”
Larua has served the quivalent of a 12-month sentence on remand, Mr Kemp added. She is remorseful and determined to address her addiction.
But Judge Rafferty told Larua that “someone who drinks to the point of being mentally deranged” is not suffering from a mental illness.
"You had done absolutely nothing to control your drinking before,” he said.
"You told the probation officer the only reason you weren't drinking inside is because some people got sick from drinking the rotgut in there.”
Larua, aged 29, now of Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield, admitted attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and possessing a blade, at a revious hearing.
On Friday she received a three year sentence, suspended for three years, with 30 rehabilitation days and a nine-month alcohol treatment requirement.