Man locked up for gouging out his girlfriend’s eyes

A MAN who gouged out his girlfriend’s eyes during a savage attack was jailed indefinitely today.

Powerfully-built Shane Jenkin, 33, used his fingers to blind Tina Nash during a vicious assault in which he also throttled her unconscious and broke her jaw and nose.

Efforts to save the sight in one of the 31-year-old’s eyes failed and she was left completely blind.

Jenkin of Hayle, Cornwall, admitted a charge of grievous bodily harm with intent last month. He denied the more serious charge of attempted murder.

At Truro Crown Court today, he was handed an indeterminate sentence for public protection by Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC for the sadistic attack at his partner’s home in Hayle in April last year.

The minimum term was fixed for six years and the judge also made a “hybrid order” that 6ft 4in Jenkin should be detained at a secure psychiatric hospital.

Ms Nash sat in the public gallery but Jenkin refused to attend court.

The mother of two, whose children were aged 13 and three at the time of the attack, said she was glad Jenkin had “at least taken responsibility for changing my life forever”.

She said: “He has taken everything from me and robbed me of one of the most precious things in life – my sight.”

Ms Nash said she was left feeling “buried alive, claustrophobic and not in control of my life” by the assault.

“I actually look forward to going to sleep because in my dreams I have sight,” she said.