A MAN from Corwen who was handed life imprisonment for the attempted murder of a woman and child was told by the judge who sentenced him that it was a “miracle” that nobody was killed by his actions.

Ryan Wyn Jones, 27, of Clawdd Poncen, was jailed with a minimum of 20 years at Mold Crown Court on Friday (December 8).

He had previously admitted two charges of attempted murder, and one count each of unlawful wounding and possession of a bladed article.

Jones repeatedly stabbed a woman and two children in the early hours of May 5, causing life-threatening injuries.

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Below, you can read extracts from the sentencing remarks made by Mr Justice Martin Griffiths to Jones during Friday’s hearing.

Mr Justice Griffiths told Jones he is a “violent” and “vindictive” man who “gratuitously degraded” the woman in his attack.

He said: “These were not just spur of the moment attacks. I am sure that they were premeditated.

“You were determined that she should die from the stabbing. You underestimated her.

“Heartbreaking body-worn camera footage starts at 3.02am, which shows how close your intended victims were to death.

“The 999 call recording, and the video footage from the body-worn camera later, is very distressing indeed, some of the worst I have seen.”

And yet, Mr Justice Griffiths added, this footage was “only an echo” of the violence which Jones had “deliberately inflicted” on his victims.

Jones, Mr Justice Griffiths said, “did everything you could to kill”.

He continued: “It is difficult in words to convey the horror and the depravity of what you did to them that night. It is a miracle that no-one died.”

The woman suffered more than 30 separate stab wounds, causing life-threatening injuries, with Jones said to have been laughing throughout the attack.

Part of her skull which had been forced into her brain could not be safely removed, and the tip of the knife which Jones used was also left lodged in her skull.

After a 10-hour operation, and being placed in an induced coma in intensive care afterwards, the woman was discharged from hospital 12 days after the attack.

But she remains under the care of a consultant neurologist, and struggles to open her mouth, which means that she can no longer eat properly.

She was also said to have suffered serious post traumatic stress disorder, which is triggered by the sight of the scars on her body and face.

A forensic psychologist has found that she has serious cognitive impairment, of a magnitude found in those with dementia, as a result of the injuries Jones inflicted on her.

Her working memory is worse than 95 per cent of the population, while her verbal fluency and language functions have both been impaired.

Mr Justice Griffiths added: “You inflicted permanent, irreversible injury. You spat on her as well as stabbing and stamping on her. You gloried in wreaking violence on her.

“I do give you credit for sparing the victims a trial by your guilty pleas, but the pre-sentence report does not support the suggestion of true remorse.

“The report writer found that you were ‘victim-blaming’ and minimising your own responsibility, presenting a dishonest and manipulative account of yourself and the offences in an effort to reduce your culpability, instead of acknowledging it for what it was.

“You are violent. You are vindictive. You lack insight. You are prone to misuse of alcohol and cocaine, and nothing your family or anyone else has ever said to you deterred you from a downward spiral of substance abuse and escalating violence.

“Your conduct, not only in the presence of the children, but directly targeting them, puts you far outside the ordinary constraints of human decency.

“The pre-sentence report, based on an interview with you over six months after the event, when you were sober, and in prison, and had had plenty of time to reflect, shows that you are still a highly dangerous and untrustworthy person.

“You will, in my judgment, remain so for the indefinite future, and possibly forever.

“Although I am glad to hear that you have engaged with substance abuse programmes in prison, I must sadly agree with the author of the pre-sentence report that, if you were to be released from prison, there is every reason to fear that you would again reach for drugs and alcohol in response to the pressures and temptations of life outside.

“The minimum term will not be your sentence. Your sentence is imprisonment for life.”