GLENROTHES MAN SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS FOR VIOLENT ATTACKS AND ATTEMPTED MURDER OF WOMEN
A serial abuser, who tried to murder a woman by striking her repeatedly with wooden table legs on Christmas Day, has been jailed for ten years.Robert Carr bludgeoned his victim and throttled her before later sending her a message on social media saying he loved her.
The 39-year-old also sent a further message to the 20-year-old woman asking: "Why did u send the police to my door?" Paramedics found her crouching behind a parked car, covered in blood and shaking uncontrollably after she had fled her flat in Lochgelly, Fife, where Carr had attacked her.
She was taken to hospital with head wounds and doctors noted rectangular marks on her back and shoulder blades consistent with being hit with wooden table legs.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard on Thursday that the attempted murder followed a series of violent offences which Carr, of Elgin Drive, Glenrothes, had inflicted on women, two of them pregnant.
One victim said she still did not feel safe and another said she was terrified of Carr and feared that he would kill her.
A judge told Carr: "You pled guilty to ten charges comprising a series of offences involving a sustained and violent course of conduct against women culminating in attempted murder." Jailing him, Lord Ericht also ordered Carr be kept under supervision for a further three years after his sentence ends.
Carr had been drinking and fell asleep at the woman's home on Christmas Eve, 2015.
When he awoke, on Christmas Day, he started to call her offensive names before punching and slapping her.
Advocate depute Ian Wallace said: "He then picked up a wooden table, turned it upside down and ripped the legs off it." "He took a table leg in each hand and repeatedly struck her on the head with them." The woman tried to get up but Carr grabbed her by the throat and squeezed, pinning her against a wall.
Carr resumed his attack with the table legs and she curled up in a ball to protect herself.
He then kicked her in the stomach and beat her on the back with the table legs.
Carr then left the room, only to return to punch the woman and hit her again over the head with a table leg.
Only when he went to the toilet did she manage to get out of the flat and, covered in blood and terrified, cowered behind a car.
She was discovered by a passer-by who alerted emergency services.
She was later found to have suffered 19 separate injuries.
Police recovered table legs stained with the victim's blood from her home.
Mr Wallace said that Carr later sent the woman a message telling her: "Am home love u." Carr, who has previously served 17 sentences including for assault, earlier admitted attempted murder.
He also pleaded guilty to nine assault charges between 2003 and 2015 at addresses in Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy, Lochgelly and the former T in the Park campsite at Balado, Kinross, against female victims, two of them pregnant.
Carr attacked one woman, now 46, with a thick church candle, striking her and punching her until she passed out.
In another attack on the same woman, he fired a gas propelled pellet gun at her, wounding her in the head and shoulder.
The woman fled the house with her infant son with Carr in pursuit and continuing to shoot at her.
She later had a pellet removed from her head and another from her shoulder but a third pellet in her shoulder could not be extracted.
Defence solicitor advocate Krista Johnston said the offences were "awful".
She added: "He feels deep shame about his behaviour." Detective Chief Inspector Sam McCluskey of the domestic abuse task force said: "Robert Carr is an individual who presented a significant risk to women.
"It is only through the courage of his victims in coming forward and reporting what he had done, that he has now been brought to justice and I hope the sentence today brings some form of closure for those women."
