Wooden table legs used in Fife murder attempt

Robert Carr (39) then sent the victim a Facebook message hours later saying “why did u send the police to my door”.

The frightened 20-year-old woman was found by paramedics crouching behind a parked car, covered in blood and shaking badly after fleeing her home in Lochgelly, where Carr attacked.

She was taken to hospital where head wounds were sutured and stapled and doctors noted rectangular marks on her back and shoulder blades consistent with being hit with a table leg.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that the attempted murder was the culmination of a decade long campaign of violence and intimidation that controlling Carr, of Elgin Drive, Glenrothes, had inflicted on women.

One victim said she still did not feel safe and another said she was terrified of Carr and feared that he would kill her.

Carr had been drinking at the 20-year-old woman’s home on Christmas Eve in 2015 and fell asleep. She thought he would leave in the morning after sleeping it off.

She could not phone anyone after Carr had broken it after refusing to leaving her house. He awoke on Christmas Day and began calling her a “slag” and a “whore” and slapped and punched her before she told him to leave.

Ian Wallace, advocate depute, said: “He then picked up a wooden table, turned it upside down and ripped the legs off it. He took a table leg in each hand and repeatedly struck her on the head with them.”

The woman tried to get up but Carr grabbed her by the throat and squeezed, pinning her against a wall. The woman was struggling for breath before he released her.

Carr resumed his attack with the table legs and she curled up in a ball to protect herself. he kicked her full force in the stomach and began beating her on the back with the makeshift weapons.

He left the room but returned and punched her in the face before striking her again on the head with a table leg.

Carr suddenly stopped the assault and announced he was going to the toilet. He ordered her to sit down but she took her chance and fled from the flat and hid behind a car.

Passers-by saw her terrified and covered in blood and alerted the emergency services before she was taken to hospital where 19 separate injuries were documented on the battered victim. Police found table legs stained with the victim’s blood at her home.

Mr Wallace said that Carr later sent the woman a message telling her: “Am home love u.”

Carr, who has previously served 17 sentences of detention and imprisonment, including for assault, admitted attempting to murder the woman in the Christmas attack.

He also pled guilty to a further eight assault charges committed between 2003 and 2015 at addresses in Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy, Lochgelly and the former T in the Park campsite at Ballado, Kinross, against women victims, two of whom were pregnant during some of the incidents.

Carr had also originally faced charges of raping victims, but those allegations were either deleted or his not guilty plea accepted.

Carr told one woman, now 46, that he would “shut her up permanently” after she rejected money he wanted to give her as a birthday present.

He then launched an attack on her, punching her in the face and striking her with a thick church candle until she passed out.

The woman came to lying on her living room floor feeling “indescribable pain” but managed to get to her bed and fell asleep. Her sister arrived and found her unconscious on the bed with blood on her face and thought she was dead, but managed to waken her following the attack in 2004.

The victim was at a party at another woman’s home with children present in Glenrothes the following year when Carr turned up uninvited.

He closed the curtains and brought out a small case containing a gas propelled pellet gun. he put the weapon together and shot the woman hosting the party in the hand after firing into the ceiling.

He then turned on his previous assault victim and shot her in the head and shoulder. She lunged at him to try and stop him and he shot her in the head again. The woman said Carr was shouting at her for wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Young, Free and Single”.

The woman fled from the house with her infant son with Carr following and continuing to shoot at her.

She later had a pellet removed from her head and another from her shoulder, but a third pellet in her shoulder could not be extracted.

The victim later moved to England to get away from Carr before returning to live in Scotland.

The judge, Lord Ericht, deferred sentence on Carr for the preparation of a background report and remanded him in custody.