A forgiving woman whose pleas for mercy saved her lover from a jail sentence was repaid by being stabbed.

And as she lay bleeding, Lynne Myers' heartless partner Carl Harris told her: "You deserve to die!"

Mrs Myers had faced abuse at the hands of her violent lover when he poured lighter fluid down her back - before setting her alight.

But despite the attack, she wrote a letter to a judge pleading for Harris not to be jailed.

"carl said he wouldn't help as i deserved to die and he just got into bed…” – victim lynne myers

In May last year, bullying Harris told Mrs Myers she "wasn't loving enough" and hit her seven times despite her begging him to stop.

And in October he ignored a court order and went to his lover's flat - again drunk and carrying bottles of wine.

The 46-year-old - who has now been jailed for five years after admitting wounding with intent, common assault and causing criminal damage - demanded Mrs Myers make him food.

When she refused, he began mumbling that he "knew people who would kill people for a couple of hundred pounds".

James Bilsland, prosecuting, told Canterbury Crown Court: "He started to make threats against her family, but she ignored it as she had heard that before."

But then he made a comment about her grandson and she later told police: "It was like a red rag to a bull and I punched him with a clenched fist to his chin. He fell on the floor and got up a minute or two later.

"He was standing just inside the kitchen. I remember feeling this stabbing feeling. I looked down and I saw blood on the left hand side of my abdomen. I was in a state of shock and realised that Carl had stabbed me in the stomach. I hadn't seen a knife."

Mrs Myers then went to call 999, but Harris disconnected the phone. She managed to grab her mobile phone and call for help.

'toxic relationship'

mr jones added: "this was quite clearly a toxic relationship and when you hear the facts of this case it paints a very dark picture. but he has written a letter of apology to his victim. i am sure that it was only scant comfort to his victim but it shows an element of remorse."
the court heard that in 1980 harris helped save the life of someone who was trying to commit suicide by drowning - and received a commendation.

nicholas jones, defending, said the wounding happened while he was under a suspended sentence for attacking mrs myers.

he said at 25 he suffered "life-changing injuries" in a motor cycle accident, which prevented him from working and "the inevitable depression which followed culminated in this defendant attempting to take his own life".

She said: "I lay on the bed and put my hands over the wound. I said to Carl that he would have to help me as I could die with this as I didn't know how deep the wound was.

"Carl said he wouldn't help as I deserved to die and he just got into bed."

Even when ambulance services arrived Mrs Myers had staggered to the door alone as Harris remained in bed, the court heard.

Harris, of King Street, Ramsgate, later told police his lover had hit him "for no reason that he could understand" and he had grabbed the knife fearing for his life and Mrs Myers had "run on to that knife".

Mr Bilsland said Mrs Myers needed stitches for the stomach wound, but was released from hospital the following day.

In May, Harris had also attacked his partner of three years - who told police that when he drinks "he acts odd".

Jailing him for five years, Judge Adele Williams told Harris: "You stabbed your partner in the abdomen. You were drunk. She struck you but your response was to take a knife and plunge it into her abdomen.

"The effect on her have been traumatic and long-term. She has had to move away from the area and has been physically and emotionally damaged by this offence."