TWO would-be killers who left a mother for dead on a East Meon bridleway last July were finally brought to justice this week.
The 44-year-old mother of four from Southbourne was left naked with severe head injuries on a footpath about half a mile west of HMS Mercury, and is still in hospital in a vegetative state on a ventilator, being fed through a tube, a year after the vicious attack.
The woman, who cannot be named under the Sexual Offences Amendment Act (1992), was so brutally injured it is doubtful she will ever know that justice has caught up with her attackers.
Damian Taylor (30), from Gosport, was found guilty of attempted murder and rape, and Kerry Young (25), also from Gosport, was found guilty of grevious bodily harm. Taylor was sentenced to 25 years in jail and Young was sentenced to five years in jail at Winchester Crown Court.
During the trial, the court heard how Young and Taylor met their victim outside Portsmouth MagistratesÕ Court, and then spent the day drinking with her in pubs in Fareham.
They then took her to the isolated beauty spot near East Meon, where the attack was carried out.
She was only discovered the next day, when a dog walker found her.