THE VICTIM OF what the judge in the case described as a “savage” and “vicious” attack has said her life is “a daily battle”.

Simone Lee was beaten, stabbed and scalded by her partner Colin Ryan who was sentenced yesterday.

Judge Tom O’Donnell said gardaí walked into a “bloodbath” when they arrived at the woman’s flat where the attack took place.

“There was blood everywhere,” he added.

Colin Ryan, aged 30, and from St Ita’s Street, St Mary’s Park, Limerick, pleaded guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Simone Lee, (39), on 27 November 2016.

Lee sustained a brain injury, a broken nose, broken bones, and scald injuries.

She also suffered burns to her face, neck, trunk, and eyelids.

She was also stabbed in the back.

Due to the serious nature of her injuries, gardaí initially believed Lee was a victim of an acid attack.

Gardaí later told the court they now believe she was scalded with boiling water.

Lee also lost some of her hair in the attack and now wears a wig.

Victim impact statement

Writing in her victim impact statement, Simone Lee said Ryan was initially “kind and gentle”.

Early on in their relationship she “thought he was my shining armour”.

But, on the night, he just beat me and beat me and beat me some more.

“You didn’t see me as a human being. You beat me to within an inch of my life,” she told Ryan in her statement.

“All I can remember is fear, and it haunts me daily.”

Because of her injuries she had to learn to walk again, and she continues to suffer from headaches, a tingling sound in her ears, and she suffers from balance issues.

“My life is a daily battle” she said.

She said she wears a wig, to hide the permanent loss of her hair on part of her head.

“The mirror is my enemy. It pains to see my reflection.”

She said she has “trust issues” and is “nervous” around men.

“I cant live on my own,” she added.

‘A bloodbath’

Gardaí responding to a report of a serious disturbance at Lee’s flat at Hassett’s Villas, Thomondgate found shards of glass on the road outside the property and a step ladder protruding from a window at the upstairs flat

Ryan, covered in blood, allowed gardaí into the flat, telling them: “She’s playing dead upstairs.”

The judge said: “Gardaí encountered what can only be described as the most horrific of scenes. The flat can only be described as a bloodbath. There was blood everywhere.”

Furniture and two televisions were found smashed up inside the flat.

Photographic stills taken by gardaí from inside the flat “show the absolute havoc gardai encountered,” the judge said.

Gardaí discovered Ms Lee semi-naked and unconscious on the floor with burn marks and stab wounds on her back.

She was routed by ambulance to St James’s Hospital, Dublin, where she was put in an induced medical coma for three weeks.

Some of her neighbours told gardaí they heard loud noises coming from Lee’s flat “for most of the day”.

One neighbour said it “sounded like a building being demolished”.

It was accepted both Ryan and Lee appeared to be in a volatile relationship, which was fueled by each other’s drug and alcohol addictions.

Bloodstains found on Ryan’s clothes, and blood found at the scene was matched to the victim.

Ryan’s fingerprints were also discovered in bloodstains found inside the flat.

Initially, following his arrest, Ryan denied any wrongdoing.

The court heard there were no witnesses to the attack, and, Ryan’s guilty plea was “very welcome”.

Judge O’Donnell said the attack as “appalling, brutal, and savage”.

Ryan had initially told gardai he found Ms Lee covered in blood after he called to her flat.

He claimed she threw a step ladder at him hitting him on his arm and which smashed through a window.

Ryan’s barrister Mark Nicholas described it as “a desperate case”.

‘Sustained, vicious, savage’

Ryan had two previous District Court convictions for non-violent offences.

“The assault was quite clearly a sustained, vicious, savage attack,” the judge said.

Gardai also found “a broken broom handle with the victim’s blood and hair on it”.

He noted Ryan’s guilty plea “is a public acknowledgment of his wrongdoing…and a trial was avoided”.

“Had matters gone to trial it’s not absolute that a conviction would have followed,” he said.

Ryan had led a “chaotic life” and showed remorse for the attack, the court heard.

The judge said, while both parties had had a “volatile” relationship, there was “no evidence” as to what “lit the fuse” leading to “the sequence of events” on the night.

Defence submissions were presented to the judge which included a reference to “provocation”.

The judge rejected this.

“I don’t often comment in the course of pleas of mitigation in which a reference was made to provocation,” he said.

The court notes the submissions but the court must be cognisant of the nature and seriousness of the injuries.

He added: “No human – let alone a defenseless woman – should be subjected to such a vicious and savage and cowardly attack as was meted out to the victim.”

Ryan was jailed for nine-and-a-half years, with the final two years suspended for a period of nine-and-a-half years.

Lee, who has since successfully addressed her addiction issues, was not visible in the body of the court for the sentencing hearing.