Tina Nash had her eyes gouged by Shane Jenkin in 2011 (BBC)
Tina Nash had her eyes gouged by Shane Jenkin in 2011 (BBC)

The boyfriend of a woman who was blinded in an eye-gouging attack by a previous partner has been jailed for assaulting her in front of one of her children.

Tina Nash, 33, was blinded when Shane Jenkin attacked her as she slept at her home in Hayle, Cornwall in 2011. She also suffered a broken jaw and nose during the assault.

It has emerged that her current boyfriend Roland Alli, 32, has been jailed for 14 weeks after admitting to assaulting her at her home.

Alli was due to stand trial charged with common assault, but changed his plea at Truro Magistrates Court after previously denying the charges.

The court heard how Alli had subjected the "extremely vulnerable" Nash to the attack at her home in Penzance, Cornwall on 16 June.

The violence was witnessed by one of Nash's children and caused "extreme emotional distress".

Alli, from Plymouth, Devon, was also handed a restraining order which banned him from going near Nash's home or contacting her.

After being attacked by the 6ft 4in, 17-and-a-half stone Jenkin two years ago, Nash wrote a book entitled Out of Darkness about her experience and has campaigned against domestic violence ever since.

She wrote: "He [Jenkin] has taken everything from me and robbed me of one of the most precious things in life - my sight.

"Sometimes I feel as though I've been buried alive, [I'm] claustrophobic and not in control of my life.

"I actually look forward to going to sleep because in my dreams I have sight. It's when I wake up that the truth hits home."

Jenkin was jailed for life with a minimum term of six years for grievous bodily harm.

'I asked my family to finish me off'

After he was jailed, Nash said it was her children who gave her the strength to continue with her life after the horrific attack.

She told the Guardian: "I thought I was going to lose my kids - I had lost everything. I asked my family to finish me off because I didn't want to be here anymore.

"When I found out I could keep my kids, that it would be discrimination if they were taken away from me, I thought: 'I can do this. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I can.'"