A serial thug involved in a horror machete attack on a woman after bursting into her home has been jailed for 11 years. William Kemp, 32, and two accomplices smashed into the property in Lanark in the early hours of May 2, 2022.
Terrified victim Ashley Reilly tried to use a wardrobe as a shield to keep the violent raiders out. But, the then 35 year-old ended up suffering gruesome injuries after being repeatedly slashed.
Jurors heard how two children present at the time were also left traumatised. Kemp was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow having earlier been convicted of attempted murder.
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The hearing was told he had previously been jailed seven times for assault – the last in 2021 an attack on someone also in their own home. Kemp had been back on the streets just five weeks before the murder bid.
Judge Douglas Brown said he noted the thug continued to protest his innocence for what was “obviously a planned attack” at 4am. But, he told Kemp: “You broke in by smashing a glass door panel.
“After she had tried to barricade the stairs with a wardrobe to stop you getting in, you threatened to kill her and repeatedly struck her. This caused her severe injury.
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“Had she not received urgent medical attention, she would have died and you would now be facing a charge of murder.” Judge Brown said he had read a harrowing victim impact statement detailing how Miss Reilly has been affected by the ordeal.
He went on: “She now has only limited use of her right hand and now requires the assistance of a carer for the most basic of everyday tasks.
“She is now longer able to walk any significant distance due to continuing pain in left leg and foot. There are significant psychological problems as do the children who were present during the attack. She anticipates being on medication for the rest of her life.”
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Kemp will be supervised for a further three years on his release. John McCutcheon, 24, and Dylan Harding, 21, had also faced the same allegation, but jurors returned not proven verdicts on each after the trial last month.
Miss Reilly spoke at the time of the incident of how the attacks hacked through the wardrobe severing tendons in her wrist and ankle leaving large open wounds in her leg.
She recalled in 2022: “They were swinging the machete about, up and down at me. I did not even realise I had been hurt. I was shouting police were coming and they ran off. I was just thinking of the kids. I would have died defending them.”
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