Eluding expulsion from her school, Oxford university medical student Lavinia Wooward stabbed her tinder date with a breadknife, and despite being handed a 10-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months, will be allowed to return to her studies.
Miss Woodward voluntarily suspended her studies for the duration of her jail sentence. A university disciplinary will take place at the end of the 18-month suspension, but the 24-year old budding surgeon, considered among brightest by senior figures at Christ Church, is being considered as ‘setting the terms’ of her future at the school with this move.
Miss Woodward’s legal counsel, James Sturman QC, claims she was reluctant to go back to the school, fearing she’d be recognised alongside her crime. Consequently, most people thought she may voluntarily leave the school, rather than suspending herself.
Usually, incidents like these end up in expulsion, but according to the Daily Mail sources suggest she has the institutional support of senior figures at Christ Church. But Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, said: “I do not think [Woodward] is getting special treatment.”
Even when being sentenced to jail term, for stabbing Cambridge student Thomas Fairclough in the leg with a breadknife while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the judge claimed Miss Woodward’s future was too bright to be in jail and that such a sentence would ruin her future as a heart surgeon.
What do you make of this treatment and course of action? With Britain’s future generations lacking in numbers when it comes to professional skills, is leniency in law the right way forward?
