EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – I don’t know what’s going on in Edinburgh at the moment, but in all my time trawling the sordid mass we call the internet, never have I regretted clicking on a link as much as I did when I discovered this story. Francis Murphy, 26, wasn’t best pleased that his girlfriend of 10 years dumped him for another man, so turned up at their home, attacked the man and then tried to gouge out her eye with his thumb and fingers. The victim, 27-year-old Natalie Farrell, passed out when Murphy started choking her. When she woke up, her eyeball was hanging by the optic nerve, resting on her cheek. He used a metal coat hanger to do the deed. This not being revolting or damaging enough for Murphy, he ripped off the eyeball and chucked it out the window, where a neighbor later found it laying in the street. The Judge who sentenced him told Murphy, “You were convicted of crimes which are almost medieval in their barbarity, which would make any right thinking person recoil in horror. ” Recoil? I had to leave my desk after reading the story and I’m hardly what you would describe as “right-thinking.”  Murphy reckons he remembers nothing of it. I reckon he’s a savage nutcase who deserves far more than the 12 years in jail he’s been sentenced.

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