Meat cleaver attack: Watch police arrest man who chopped off victim's fingers in horrific domestic abuse case

This is the moment police officers arrested a man "covered in blood" after he left a woman close to death by hacking her 32 times with a meat cleaver.

Chilling body-cam footage shows the moment officers were called to a ‘horror’ attack where a violent man left his terrified victim with what a senior cop described as the "worst injuries ever seen on someone who survived". The video shows Lee Sargent, 47, calmly opening the door to officers with one of them exclaiming "Oh my God" as they find him drenched in blood.

Her fingers were chopped off

Sargent then leads police to a darkened bedroom where they found the woman, who had been repeatedly hacked and had her fingers chopped off, on the bed. A court heard the 43-year-old woman only survived thanks to quick-thinking police officers who administered medical aid which saved her life.

Drunken attack in the home

She had suffered 32 wounds to her face and hand and has been left scarred for life as a result of the life-changing injuries. Sargent went on to plead guilty to attempted murder following the drunken attack at his home in Stirchley, Telford, Shrops., on August 1 last year.

Domestic abuser sentenced

Yesterday (Wed) he was jailed for 18 years and 10 months at Stafford Crown Court. Judge Kristina Montgomery KC also ordered Sargent to spend 21 years on licence due to the potential "danger he posed to public."

Life-changing injuries

The court heard the victim spent 11 days in ICU a coma and over a month in hospital following the frenzied attack. Prosecutor Patrick Sullivan said she had lost several fingers and a thumb and now “struggled in daily life” requiring help to “dress herself, cut her food and doing simple things like using scissors.

Victim was ‘close to death’

Temporary Detective Inspector Scott Marshall-Bowater, of West Mercia Police, said afterwards: "She was so close to death, if it hadn't been for the medical interventions of police officers, who administered a tourniquet on her arm, and the response by the paramedics, she would not have lived.”