Student deemed ‘too bright’ to go to jail quits Oxford University degree

An Oxford University student who was dubbed ‘too bright’ to go to jail after stabbing her then-boyfriend has now dropped out of her degree.

Lavinia Woodward, 26, attacked lover Thomas Fairclough with a bread knife after drinking heavily at Christ Church college in 2016.

After admitting unlawful wounding, the judge decided she was ‘too bright’ for prison, arguing that it could damage her future career as a heart surgeon.

She was sentenced to 10 months behind bars, suspended for 18 months.

Woodward paused her studies after her court appearance, choosing to wait for it to ‘blow over’ before she returned to university.

But the treasurer for Christ Church has since confirmed she has ‘formally withdrawn from the college and the university’.

She is now reportedly living in a million pound Kensington flat with her boyfriend, Philip Kagalovsky, the son of Russian billionaire, Oligarch Konstantin Kagalovsky.

The student was said to be high-flying academic and her research on lipoproteins and vein grafts had been published in journals.

An unnamed friend said at the time of her sentencing: ‘I think they would be happy to have her back, and that she will end up returning quietly.

‘She’s done some very interesting work in cardiology, they’ve described her as a future Nobel Prize winner.’

Woodward was arrested in December 2016, after Mr Fairclough went to visit her in Oxford.

He had tried to stop her from drinking and she became ‘increasingly volatile’, before flying into a rage when she discovered he had Skyped her mum for assistance with the situation.

She then began throwing objects at the Cambridge student, including a laptop, a glass and a jam jar, before stabbing him in the leg with a bread knife.

Emergency services arrived to find Woodward ‘intoxicated, deeply distraught and mentally disturbed’.

She planned to turn the knife on herself before Mr Fairclough disarmed her.

In court, she admitted unlawful wounding and was sentenced in September 2017, with Judge Ian Pringle QC stating that she was an ‘extraordinary able young lady’.

He called the incident a ‘one-off’, before describing her as a ‘highly intelligent individual’.

The sentencing was met with controversy, as justice campaigners claimed it would not have happened if she had been a different gender or come from a poor background.

Woodward has appealed her suspended sentence twice in an attempt to replace it with a fine or conditional discharge.

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