A woman was jailed for four years today after attacking her sleeping friend with a plugged in electric carving knife.
Acacia Morgan claimed voices were screaming in her head to do it and maintained that she had been driven crazy for weeks.
Morgan made a 999 call to the emergency services after the bloody attack and explained she had cut her friend’s throat and was worried she would do something else.
Morgan (51) earlier admitted assaulting Joanne Campbell to her injury and permanent disfigurement by striking her on the neck with the knife on December 13 last year, when she appeared at Wick Sheriff Court.
But she was sent to the High Court because of the possibility of imposing an Order for Lifelong Restriction on her following the attack on the 50-year-old victim.
But Morgan’s counsel, Edith Forrest, said she had now been assessed as posing a low risk and did not meet the criteria for an OLR.
The defence counsel said: “She is not a danger to the public at large.”
Judge Nigel Morrison QC told Morgan at the High Court in Edinburgh: “This was a serious assault involving an electric kitchen knife on your friend.”
But the judge added that the injury was described as “superficial” and she had made a 999 call after the attack.
The judge ordered that Morgan should be kept under supervision for a further period of two years.
The court heard that the circumstances of the offence were “unusual and almost bizarre”.
Morgan sometimes stayed overnight at her friend’s home in High Street, Keiss, in Caithness. She made a call to police in the early hours of the morning saying she had hurt the other woman and gave her address and said there was blood all over.
She said her friend was still in bed with a towel around her neck and she was going to pack up and go to the woods.
She said there had been no falling out but there was constant voices in her head.
Officers arrived and found the victim asleep with a neck injury and large amounts of blood in the room.
Ms Campbell said she had gone to bed after taking medication and had fallen asleep but woke to find a hand at her neck.
She was taken to hospital for treatment but was left with a scar on her neck.
Morgan told police during an interview that she had been unable to sleep and went downstairs and got the knife and plugged it in before cutting down on her friend’s neck.
She saw the blood and realised what she had done and got a towel to stem the flow and called police and waited for them to arrive.
Miss Forrest said that Morgan suffered from a borderline personality disorder of an anti-social type.
She said that she had spent much of her life moving from place to place.
The defence counsel said that Morgan had provided some insight into her behaviour and referred to the voices in her head.
Miss Forrest added: “The voices being the reason why this act was carried out.”
Morgan had been prescribed medication which she said had calmed her considerably and reduced the voices she was hearing.
Miss Forrest said Morgan did not have anyone visiting her in Cornton Vale women’s prison at Stirling and had nowhere to go on release.
She said Morgan did not intend to return to Caithness and did not wish to upset the victim further.