Eyeball attacker is found guilty

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A man who pulled out his former partner's eyeball and tried to throw her from an eighth-floor balcony has been convicted of attempted murder.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Francis Murphy, 26, attacked Natalie Farrell with a wire coat hanger at a block of flats in Dundee.

Despite admitting that he had gouged out the 27-year-old's eye, Murphy had denied trying to kill her.

He was remanded into custody and will be sentenced next month.

During the trial, Ms Farrell described the attack by Murphy at her home in Dundee's Dalfield Court on 26 May this year.

She said she had ended her ten-year relationship with him and had started a new partnership with another man.

However, Murphy turned up at her home, attacked her new boyfriend, then grabbed her and said he was going to take out her eye with a metal hook.

She described how he tried at get his thumb and two fingers into her eye and pull it out.

'Distressing case'

She said she then passed out when Murphy began throttling her.

Murphy then pulled out her eye and threw it over an eighth-floor balcony.

Ms Farrell said she only learned that her eye had been pulled out when a friend found it and gave it to paramedics.

Her neighbour, Noel Pittham, told the court that he watched Murphy try to force Ms Farrell over the balcony as he attacked her.

The court also heard from Ms Farrell's friend, Jade Hall, 24, who recounted hitting Murphy with a brush to try to stop him from attacking her friend.

She said that it was only when she descended the stairs of the block of flats that she and another man found Ms Farrell's eye lying in the street.

Murphy had claimed to police that he could remember nothing of the attack.

After the jury returned their verdict, Judge Lord Brailsford told them he recognised the case had been distressing.

He added: "It is not the sort of case that is run of the mill for us either."

Ms Farrell, who was not in court to hear the verdict, is having treatment to see if she can be given an artificial eye.