Knife attacker given 12 year term

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/6155118.stm

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A County Down man has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of knifing a 17-year-old girl and her 19-year old boyfriend.

The court heard 34-year-old Paul Stephen Bustard from Donard Avenue in Newtownards had been introduced to drugs by his parents when he was 11.

He lured the couple to a Bangor flat in June 2006 for what the judge termed "a prolonged and terrifying attack".

Mr Justice Hart praised the "exemplary courage" of the teenage girl.

Jailing Bustard, the Downpatrick Crown Court judge, sitting in Belfast, said despite his guilty pleas, "this was a very grave crime, with aggravating features and requires severe sentences at the top of the range".

Despite being stabbed by Bustard, the added fear faced by both victims were "the threats that they would be killed, threats which they believed and which I have no doubt gained added force from the atmosphere in which they were uttered and from the serious wounds he had inflicted on them".

The couple's 90 minute "nightmarish ordeal" came to an end when the girl managed to escape from the flat.

It was at this point that Bustard, who had failed to recapture her, telephoned his father and police were summoned to arrest him.