Man who attempted to murder woman while on date jailed

A man who attempted to murder a woman while on a date has been jailed for nine years.

Michael Harvey, 32, was captured on CCTV brutally assaulting his then partner in Glasgow city centre in 2023. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said the vicious assault left the woman in an induced coma suffering from severe head injuries.

At the High Court in Glasgow, judge Lord Colbeck said the victim impact statement set out the "devastating consequences" of the violence. He stated: "As a result of your attacks upon her, [the victim] suffered life-changing severe injuries, permanent impairment and permanent disfigurement." COPFS said prosecutors were able to demonstrate Harvey's "savagery and duplicity" with video and audio recordings that showed how he subjected the woman to an "ordeal spanning several hours".

The assault was captured on CCTV, which included the woman having her head hit against a bus stop and being dragged along the ground, causing her to lose consciousness. Harvey was also filmed shouting aggressively and gesticulating wildly at the victim over the course of the night out.

Despite being taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary following the initial attack, Lord Colbeck noted how the victim left the hospital without being seen by medics. In the early hours of the morning of 1 October 2023, hotel footage showed Harvey carrying the badly injured victim towards a room they had booked, where once again she was attacked until she lost consciousness.

Harvey, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, was later recorded in a call to the Scottish Ambulance Service and can be heard pretending the woman had fallen in the shower. Lord Colbeck stated: "Lying to others about what had happened to [the victim] was calculating and self-serving." Read more from Sky News:Views for new law that would create register for domestic abusers'Staggering' number of domestic abuse victims taking own lives Harvey denied any wrongdoing but was last month found guilty of two charges - assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement, impairment, danger to life and attempted murder; and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Lord Colbeck noted Harvey's lengthy criminal record, which comprised 26 previous convictions and two custodial sentences. He was also found to be the subject of a community payback order (CPO) at the time of his attack.

The judge stated: "None of your previous convictions involve similar offending to that now before the court - the current offences being a marked escalation in your offending behaviour." Harvey was sentenced to nine years in jail and banned from contacting his victim when he returned to the dock on Friday. Prosecutor Moira Orr, the national lead for homicide and major crime at COPFS, said: "Over the course of an evening, Michael Harvey used appalling violence and threats to exert brutal control over a woman who had gone on a date with him.

"CCTV enabled our prosecutors to share significant evidence of his brutality and threatening behaviour which was exhibited in public view as well as in private. "Our thoughts are with the woman who has suffered such terrible trauma and injuries but whose bravery has contributed so much to this prosecution.

"Violence against women and girls is a blight on our society. As this case shows, abuse can go on in plain sight as well as behind closed doors.

We must all be vigilant.".