A promising Oxford University medical student who avoided prison after stabbing her boyfriend is challenging her suspended sentence.
Leading judges are to hear an application by 25-year-old Lavinia Woodward, who was given a 10-month prison term suspended for 18 months at Oxford Crown Court.
The court heard she attacked her then-partner after drinking at her university accommodation at Christ Church college.
Lavinia Woodward
Woodward, who admitted unlawful wounding, was sentenced last September.
She was due to be sentenced earlier but a judge gave her four months to prove herself and stay out of trouble.
The stabbing happened in December 2016 when Woodward’s partner, a Cambridge University student, visited her in Oxford.
He realised she had been drinking and when Woodward discovered he had contacted her mother she became “extremely angry” and began throwing objects, before stabbing him in the leg with a bread knife.
Passing sentence on Woodward, who voluntarily suspended her studies at Oxford, Judge Ian Pringle QC said there were “many mitigating features” in her case and that he found she was “genuinely remorseful”.
He told her: “Whilst you are a clearly highly intelligent individual, you had an immaturity about you which was not commensurate for someone of your age.”
The judge said Woodward had “demonstrated over the last nine months that you are determined to rid yourself of your alcohol and drug addiction, and have undergone extensive treatment including counselling to address the many issues that you face”.
Her sentence bid will be considered by three judges at the Court of Appeal in London on Friday.
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