Man woken after drinking session punctured ex-wife's lung

Published on Friday 13 June 2008 10:48

A MAN punctured his ex-wife's lung when he attacked her for waking him up after a drinking session.

Mark Lang, aged 35, became enraged when Jacqueline Hopkins woke him at three in the morning and asked him to set up the TV so that she could watch a DVD.

He attacked her and she ended up in intensive care in hospital with a cracked rib and a punctured lung.

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, Lang, a prisoner in Saughton, was jailed for two years by Sheriff Andrew Lothian. Lang had previously pleaded guilty to assaulting Jacqueline Hopkins in her home in Wardieburn Place South, Edinburgh, on July 12 last year to her severe injury and danger of life. Sentence had been deferred for background reports.

Lang and Miss Hopkins met in 1996, married in 1999 and were divorced in 2002. They had an eight-year-old son. Despite the divorce, Fiscal Depute John Cook said "an on-off relationship" had continued.

Miss Hopkins had invited Lang to her home to look after their son. When she returned, the couple had a meal together and some wine. Later in the evening, they both went to buy some alcohol and met another couple, whom they brought back to the house. Lang was drinking straight vodka.

The Fiscal said that about three in the morning, Lang was lying half-asleep on a couch when he was wakened by Miss Hopkins to set up the TV.

Lang seized her by the hair and repeatedly punched her on the face, all the time shouting and swearing. He was pulled off his victim by others in the flat and Miss Hopkins went into her bedroom.

He, however, followed her and seizing her by the hair began dragging her up and down the side of the bed and repeatedly banging her head on a bedside cabinet and wall. Again he was pulled off his victim and the police were called and Lang arrested.

Mr Cook said Miss Hopkins was taken to the Royal Infirmary where it was discovered she had a fractured rib which had punctured a lung. She was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit where a drain was inserted into the lung.

Defence agent Robbie Burnett told Sheriff Lothian that the broken rib had not been caused by a direct blow, but when Lang had been pushing Miss Hopkins around she had fallen against a sideboard and that had caused the injury.

Lang, he added, was assessed as being at low risk of re-offending or causing harm, as long as he did not re-enter the relationship. The relationship was over, said Mr Burnett, and his client would maintain contact with his son through lawyers.

Jailing Lang for two years, Sheriff Lothian told him Miss Hopkins' life would have been threatened had it not been for the efforts of others.