A woman who was stabbed five times by her boyfriend in a row at their flat said she thought she was going to die in the attack.
Jason McDonagh appeared before Donegal Circuit Court after pleading guilty to assaulting Shauna Greene at Westport, Ballyshannon on the evening of May 24, 2023.
The court was told the couple had only lost an unborn child two weeks before the vicious attack.
McDonagh, 33, of Lawn Park, Ballyshannon, was jailed for four years for the attack by Judge John Aylmer.
Garda Paul Corcoran said received a phonecall at 1.15am in the early hours of the morning and heard a female voice screaming down the phone and then the call suddenly ended.
A female Garda recognised the voice as being that of Shauna Greene, 26, and they raced to her flat.
Gardai were forced to knock down the door after McDonagh answered but refused to open the door.
McDonagh had some injuries to his face but Ms Greene was covered in blood.
She said she had been stabbed five times and that she could feel her lungs bubbling.
Gardai applied pressure to her wounds as paramedics were called and McDonagh was arrested.
Ms Greene explained in her statement how herself and McDonagh had gone to visit his brother and partner and a row had ensued about a phone.
When they came home, she asked McDonagh why he had become involved in the row and he snapped.
He grabbed a knife and began stabbing her and she said all she could fell were sharp pains through her puffer jacket and in her neck.
As paramedics attended her, she asked them if she was going to die.
When interviewed by Gardai, McDonagh initially said he dod not stab Ms Greene and said a glass had simply been broken in their flat.
The court heard that Ms Greene had withdrawn her complaint a few days after McDonagh had telephoned her from jail but that Gardai were pressing ahead with the case.
McDonagh has a total of 132 previous convictions for a range of offences including assault causing harm, theft, burglary, public order, possession of knives, trespassing, breach of the breach, breaching a barring order and obstruction.
Barrister for the accused, Mr Colm Smyth, SC, put his client in the witness box where the accused said he was in love with Ms Greene saying what had happened was “a mistake.”
He claimed they got into an argument and that Ms Greene was roaring and shouting at him and that he had tried to leave but then the stabbing “happened.”
McDonagh, who has been in custody since last May, said he was sorry and that it should never have happened.
Mr Smyth said there was simply no excuse for what had happened to Ms Greene adding that he was doing well in prison while he had had time to reflect on what he had done.
Photos of the stab wounds to Ms Greene were handed into the court.
Passing sentence, Judge John Aylmer said McDonagh was fortunate he was not before the court on more serious charges adding that he was bound by a maximum of fives year in imprisonment for such an offence.
Judge Aylmer said he felt “curtailed and said the charge is bound by a maximum of five years in prison.
He placed this particular case at the “top end of the scale” of such offences and merited a sentence of five years before mitigation.
The Judge said there were few areas of mitigation apart from the early guilty plea from McDonagh and that he had expressed remorse.
However, he did add that he was concerned that McDonagh had called the attack “a mistake.”
He reduced the original sentence of five years by a year and also backdated the term to when McDonagh went into custody last May.