Teenager who stabbed two women in Scarborough is locked up for eight years

A WOMAN suffered life threatening injuries and had to have a kidney removed when she and a friend were both stabbed by a teenage girl in Scarborough.
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Leeds Crown Court heard the incident happened when the complainants Victoria Marsh, 34 and Leanne Oldroyd, 35, saw 18-year-old Ciara Murphy who was with a drug dealer they knew near the Boston Hotel close to Blenheim Terrace on August 14 last year.

Nick Adlington prosecuting told the court Murphy described having travelled to Scarborough from the Midlands with her boyfriend thinking they were having a holiday only to discover he was involved in supplying Class A drugs.

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She accepted she had then “had been roped into his drug trade wrapping deals for him” and had met the other dealer through him.

Mr Adlington said accounts varied about what happened when the two women saw Murphy and the woman dealer with her that day but prior to the violence Victoria Marsh had been heard by a witness to say: “I’m not having this.”

The same witness said she heard her accuse Murphy of robbing her phone before grabbing the teenager by the hair.

She then saw Victoria Marsh on the ground and the young girl was apparently striking blows at her while holding something metallic in her hand before the teenager was also rolling around with Oldroyd.

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When Murphy walked away she had an injury above her eyebrow and she later claimed to have taken out the knife to defend herself.

She claimed to a police inspector later “both of them came at me. It all happened so fast they attacked me first.”

Victoria Marsh was rushed to hospital “clammy” and unresponsive with a stab wound in her abdomen which had lacerated her left kidney.

She had to have massive blood transfusions and the kidney was removed to save her life. She also had another wound to her head and body. She left intensive care after a couple of days but had to be readmitted with respiratory problems and was in hospital until August 26.

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Her friend also had a stab wound to her abdomen and two on her arm. She was in hospital four days.

Taryn Turner representing Murphy said she was genuinely remorseful for what she had done. When she found her holiday “not panning out as she expected” and instead her boyfriend was mixing with a drug crowd in Scarborough she did not know what to do. It was “wholly outside her experience.”

She witnessed violence and in fear began carrying the knife to protect herself. Missw Turner said: “The crown accept she sustained an injury to her head at the start of this incident. In blind panic she retrieved the knife and these injuries were caused.

"It was initially self-defence when she was assaulted but it went far beyond that which was proportionate."

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She said while Murphy’s family were supportive and standing by her the boyfriend had vanished from her life. She knew she was going to have to pay for what she had done.

Murphy, 19 of Watling Street, Walsall, admitted wounding Victoria Marsh with intent and unlawfully wounding Leanne Oldroyd and was sent to a young offender institution for eight years.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said he was prepared to accept initially she had not gone to Scarborough to be involved with drugs but once there had been drawn into it. There were those in the town who did not appreciate outsiders supplying drugs.

He said whether that had something to do with it or whether it was other factors the incident showed the horrendous consequences of people carrying knives on to the streets.

The injuries she had inflicted were particularly serious for Victoria Marsh and sentences had to be imposed to deter others from carrying knives.