A woman who survived after being shot in the face by her jealous ex-partner has been left with nightmares.
Jodie Dickinson, 34, suffered a broken cheekbone in the attack which left a metal ball bearing bullet lodged behind her eye socket.
Her evil ex, Tyrone Harvey, 32, was jailed on Thursday last week after being accused of attempted murder.
The couple had recently split for the last time after years of on and off abuse, but Jodie said controlling Harvey continued to harass her.
She was applying for a non-molestation order at the time of the horror incident and was due to attend court the next day.
Derby Crown Court heard how Tyrone called his ex a b**ch before shooting her in the mouth at close range.
He denied the attempted murder charge but a jury took three and a half hours to agree unanimously that he was guilty.
Judge Shaun Smith QC ordered that Harvey will serve at least 18 years before being considered for parole.
The court heard that once he is released from prison, Harvey also faces deportation to the Caribbean island of St Kitts, where he is originally from.
Mum-of-five, Jodie, who is still off sick recovering, usually works as a carer and promo model.
She said: “That night I had a mate over and we fell asleep on the sofa.
“We were expecting another pal to arrive so when the door knocked I opened it.
“I went back to the settee and closed my eyes. I opened them again and saw my friend walk in but Tyrone followed.
“I jumped out of my skin. It was just like him to use someone to find me.”
She added: “He came over to me ranting about how he thought I was sleeping with someone but it was a really old relationship that he knew about already, he had it wrong.
“I started screaming straight away to defend myself but he was louder.
“He was shouting about the non-molestation order and how I would never get it through against him.
“Then suddenly he was walking towards me and the last thing I remember is him calling me a bitch before I heard a bang and I felt this pressure in my face.
“I could smell smoke and burning like a bonfire and then I felt the pain, I thought I was going to die of it.
“Blood was squirting out of me, all over the walls, I was running around in shock, screaming: ‘I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot, he shot me.
“The friend I was staying with ran to call the police and ambulance, we ran upstairs and hid in the bathroom waiting for help to come but Tyrone had already left.
“Armed police escorted me to hospital as protection from him.”
Jodie was rushed to hospital, where she was given morphine and a CT scan to determine the damage caused by the shooting.
After the scan, she found out the bullet used was a metal ball bearing that had miraculously avoided her eye or brain and lodged itself deeply in the soft tissue between her eye socket and cheekbone near her sinus.
Jodie said: “The bullet shattered my cheekbone and stopped behind my sinus, underneath the eye socket. The blood was all from the hole in my lip and the roof of my mouth.
“There were two holes, one clear hole where the bullet passed through and a second one from the last on my lip. My skin was split.
“The bruising was horrific, my left eye was so swollen I couldn’t see out of it for a week.”
Her wounds were treated and two months later she had an operation to remove the ball bearing once the swelling had reduced.
A Derbyshire police media appeal to find Tyrone led to his arrest a week later when his car was spotted and pulled over.
Harvey, of Ashted Nechells, Birmingham, denied the charge of attempted murder and a lesser charge of wounding with intent.
He told the court that Jodie was the aggressor and came towards him with a knife after she herself was jealous of him partying with another woman.
He said she was “crazy” and on drugs.
But the jury dismissed his account and gave a unanimous guilty verdict after three and a half hours of deliberations.
The handgun used to shoot Jodie was never recovered but a search of Harvey’s car and home uncovered a blank firearm magazine, a blank firing round, ball bearings, gun oil and instructions for a blank firing pistol.
Sentencing him to 27 years in prison Judge Shaun Smith QC said: “The jury has found you guilty of the second most serious offence on the criminal calendar, that you attempted to murder, intended to kill your victim Jodie Dickinson.
"You, at every stage of the proceedings, have tried to make sure you weren't held responsible.
"When you came to court you span lie after lie trying to pull the wool over the jury's eyes, coming up with some cock and bull story that someone else had shot her or that Jodie even shot herself to frame you.
"But the day of reckoning has come.
“What you did was to hold an improvised firearm against her face and you shot her in the head.
"Mercifully, goodness knows how, despite the ball bearing lodging in her face she has got over what happened physically."
Harvey was also ordered to pay a £190 victim surcharge.
Detective Inspector Brian Bilby, who led the team that investigated this case said: “Tyrone Harvey is a seriously dangerous individual who thought nothing of using extreme violence to try to intimidate, control and harm his ex-partner.
“Instead, she used her voice to send him to prison for nearly three decades.
“I cannot express my thanks enough to her for her strength and commitment that has meant that Tyrone Harvey will not see freedom for many years.
“Despite Harvey’s continued protestations of innocence, her testimony, which she delivered in person at court, ensured that the jury returned a guilty verdict.
“The judge, as part of his sentencing, found that the fact that the incident happened in a domestic setting between two former partners, was an aggravating factor that added extra weight to his sentence.
“I hope this sends a very clear message to any person who is suffering abuse of any kind in a relationship, or from a former partner. The courts will deliver substantial sentences for those found guilty and the police will thoroughly investigate reports of domestic abuse and violence.”
Now Jodie says she has nightmares and is scared of random men in the street as she believes they have been sent to shoot her.
She gets overwhelmed and panics when she is out in public and can’t be left alone.
Her lip is permanently scarred and she suffers from numbness on the left side of her face.
Jodie said: “I kept everything to myself for all the years I was under his spell. My own family didn’t know the truth of how controlling he was or how in danger I felt every day.
“We’d been in a relationship on and off since 2014. But even when we weren’t together he controlled my every move.
“He’d follow me in his car and attack me in the street if I tried to leave.
“It’s only now that he is in prison I feel safe to open up and warn other women if I can to look out for red flags of controlling behaviour.
“I stayed with him because I believed he’d try to kill me if I didn’t and I was right.”
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