Rich White Girl Stabs Boyfriend and Gets Away With it

Great news for white, female Oxford medicine students! You have a get out of jail free card – make sure you make the most out of it and stab your boyfriend in the leg like Lavinia Woodward did on the 30th September 2016.

The 24-year-old student heart surgeon stabbed her boyfriend in the leg with a bread knife, threw a laptop, a glass and a jar at him and punched him in a drugs and alcohol-induced rage, but who cares – she has published several academic papers, after all. Her college at Oxford, Christ Church, is allowing her to return next term because she “is that bright” and she’s a published medical author. Well surely she’s not that “bright” if she drinks and takes drugs to the extent where she ends up viciously assaulting someone.

Her case was judged in Oxford crown court by Ian Pringle QC.

This is the statement that actually came out of the judge’s mouth: “It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off. To prevent this extraordinary able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to would be a sentence which would be too severe.”

Imagine if Woodward was a 24-year-old adult who hadn’t been to university and who didn’t have a privileged life. Imagine Woodward left school at 16 with no huge academic achievement and went straight into a typical job. Would she still be labelled an “extraordinary able young lady” despite the fact she causes serious injury to another person? Would she get away with this kind of assault? It’s highly doubtful. The reality is that anyone who does not meet the ‘middle class’ criteria would receive a custodial sentence for this.

This is a disturbing but very real example of classism in the UK. Because this girl goes to a prestigious university and studies a difficult course does not mean that her actions towards her boyfriend were not evil. Her career aspirations do not compensate for the fact that she has committed a serious crime and deserves to pay for her actions.

It is likely that the mercy shown to her also has something to do with her gender. If the roles were reversed and it was a man that stabbed his girlfriend, I am quite confident that the accused would have been treated much more harshly despite the fact that being stabbed hurts just as much on a man as it does a woman.

Her defence argued that she had previously been in an abusive relationship which may have been difficult for her mental health but nothing can justify what she did. The top and bottom is, she was drunk and had been taking drugs which led her to attack someone with a knife. Class, gender, race or intelligence should not have affected the judge’s decision. The defence also said that Woodward’s goal of becoming a surgeon was “almost impossible” as she would have to disclose her conviction and to that I respond; it shouldn’t be “almost” impossible it should be completely impossible. Her aspirations do not change the fact that a man is walking around with a stab wound in his leg.

She should be removed from Oxford University and in terms of job prospects, she should be treated the exact same way that any working class person would be for committing crimes that are far less severe than what she did.