A woman slashed her ex-partner with a knife when he intervened in a drunken confrontation between her and a friend. Nikkola Lewis left her victim with a deep gash on one arm which exposed the underlying muscle and required plastic surgery to repair. Lewis has multiple previous convictions for offences of violence for which she has always been dealt with by sentences of non-immediate custody – until now.
Georgia Donohue, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on July 18, 2021, a noisy "commotion" could be heard coming from the defendant's flat in Neath. She said Lewis' former partner was visiting his brother who lived in the same block and, concerned at what may be going on upstairs, he went to investigate. When the ex entered the defendant's flat he found Lewis and a female friend involved in argument. Lewis was holding a Stanley-type knife while her friend had a pair of scissors.
The court heard the ex-partner tried to intervene but Lewis "lunged forward" and the victim immediately felt a pain in his arm and saw blood pour from a gash. The victim left the flats and rang 999 but by chance a friend was driving past the address in his car and he drove the bleeding man to Morriston Hospital. Meanwhile police had arrived at the flats and found the 42-year-old defendant "unsteady on her feet and slurring her words". Officers recovered a craft knife with blood stains on it from the property.
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The court heard the victim suffered a 6cm-long deep laceration to his right arm which exposed the muscle. Surgery was required to repair the wound and he has been left with a permanent scar. In a victim statement which was read to the court he said he has "weakness and discomfort" in the injured arm and the scar is the first thing he sees every morning when he wakes up. He said he suffers from anxiety and panic attacks and said the assault and resultant scar had greatly affected his self-confidence, adding that he was now in the habit of wearing long-sleeved tops to hide the injury.
Nikkola Krystyna Lewis, of Cimla Road, Neath, had previously pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm when she appeared in the dock having been remanded into custody at an earlier hearing due to her intoxicated presentation before the court. She has three previous offences of battery on her record along with assaulting emergency workers, possession of a bladed article, and two common assaults, one of which was committed just weeks before the knife incident. The prosecutor told the court that the delay in he case coming to be sentenced was attributable in part to the time taken to conduct forensic tests on a number of items recovered from the defendant's flat.
Rhiannon Lee, for Lewis, said the defendant was someone who had experienced "significant trauma" in her life and who used alcohol as "a crutch" but she said her client was now seeking to rebuild her relationship with her family and understands that she cannot continue along the path she had been taking. The advocate said the defendant never intended to hurt her former partner and was "mortified" at the injury she had caused and she said Lewis just wants to go home to her family and to her dog.
Judge Paul Thomas KC said he accepted Lewis' partner may not have been the person she hit out at with the knife but he told the defendant she had caused a gaping wound on her her victim's arm which required plastic surgery and which has left a permanent scar. He said he had carefully read a pre-sentence report into the defendant and noted she had received eight previous sentences which had either been community orders or suspended prison sentences but had breached at least three of them. The judge told her: "You have had chance after chance after chance to mend your ways with the help of probation and other agencies... I have reluctantly come to the view that the time has come for you to serve a custodial sentence." With a one-third discount for her guilty plea Lewis was sentenced to 16 months in prison. She will serve up to half that sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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