A mum scarred in an acid attack feared for her life when thugs in a pick-up truck rammed her vehicle in another terrifying assault.
It’s emerged that Theresa Townsley was targeted just months after she was attacked on the doorstep of her Edinburgh home.
Violent Alexander Burke was last week jailed at Hamilton Sheriff Court for three years for assaulting Theresa, her partner and sister in a row over a £13,000 car.
The court appearance came exactly one year after the horrifying acid attack in the Gracemount area of the capital.
A man threw the substance at Theresa when she answered the door.
She suffered serious burns to her face and neck.
A year on from “the worst day of my life”, Theresa, 38, said: “Day to day it is still hard, just to go out of the house, to look in the mirror.
“Most of the time I am confined to the house.
“I am scarred for life. People coming forward with information could prevent someone else suffering as I have.”
Theresa has moved away from Edinburgh and she told Hamilton Sheriff Court last week how she and her partner, James Wilson, were attacked in Lanarkshire in May after a dispute over a vehicle.
James needed more than 40 stitches after being hit on the head with a spade.
Theresa said she and her partner had gone to meet Alexander Burke, 48, in Strathclyde Park as he owed James £13,000 for a Ford Transit truck.
She told the court violence erupted when Burke, his son and other men arrived.
She fled the scene with her sister Mary Jean, but said their vehicle was rammed repeatedly by a pick-up at a nearby motorway junction.
Theresa said Burke’s son, also Alexander, 28, leapt out and battered the car windows with a scythe.
She wept as she told the jury: “He put the scythe through the passenger side window and tried to cut me.
“He was saying ‘You’re dead, you’re dead’. We thought we were going to die.
“Burke junior smashed the rest of the windows then ran back to the pick-up.”
Burke junior was jailed for three years after being found guilty of assaulting James Wilson to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement.
He was also convicted of assaulting Theresa and her sister Mary Jean as they cowered in their vehicle.
Burke senior was found guilty of the attack on the sisters and jailed for two years.
