TWO drug addicts have been jailed for brutally attacking a vulnerable teenager, leaving her for dead and lying for several hours on a Workington residential road in the cold.
Carlisle Crown Court today (THURS) heard shocking details of the vicious violence meted out in instalments to the troubled 18-year-old by Richard Musgrave, 42, and 32-year-old Stacey Louise Nicholson.
The woman had been staying with her boyfriend in a flat above the pair’s Fountains Avenue property on September 12. She went downstairs in the early hours of the following morning where drug-taking took place before she was thrown out of the property by an angry Nicholson.
The intoxicated teen banged on the door in a bid to retrieve her purse. But CCTV footage from an address opposite then showed three separate savage attacks by the pair – one a joint assault – during a 70-minute time frame. They punched and kicked the young woman – who had previously and successfully battled back from substance abuse before relapsing – before Musgrave also used a metal crutch to beat her after she desperately tried to flee.
She was left unconscious and lying in the street for almost three hours before being found with horrific injuries by a passer-by. When arrested, Nicholson sneered to police: “Next time you’ll be f***ing locking me up for murder when you find me.”
In an impact statement, the teen’s mum revealed the attack had a huge physical and emotional effect on her “devastated” daughter, who was left with bleeding on the brain and swelling, a broken bone in her back and severe bruising all over her body. She was in an induced coma for three days and given supported ventilation in hospital, where she remained for almost a fortnight. But Covid restrictions meant relatives could not be with her. “It was horrendous and heartbreaking knowing that your 18-year-old child was alone in hospital after somebody has done that kind of damage to her,” stated her mother, who said her daughter was “left for dead”.
“People think that because she has a substance addiction then she gets what she deserves, but you wouldn’t treat an animal in the way that Musgrave and Nicholson treated her, and they should be punished for what they have done.
“I think that this whole thing has caused her to give up on life, and I fear that I have lost my daughter for good.”
Heavily-convicted Musgrave pleaded guilty to one actual bodily harm assault, and to causing grievous bodily harm, while Nicholson admitted two ABH charges.
They were jailed for four years and 30 months, respectively, by Judge Nicholas Barker, who said the victim had been “viciously and persistently” attacked while she was “but a rag doll”.
