A United Kingdom woman, Rebecca Major, has told a court in London how her jealous ex-boyfriend, Ed McArthur, doused her with petrol and set her on fire to prevent her being attractive to any other man because she left him, according to Mirror.
Major who is learning how to live with the scar, narrated how McArthur attacked her while screaming 'you will never have another man, you’re going to learn your lesson this time you silly bitch,' in August, 2014, after the couple broke up.
The woman who barely managed to survive the attack, recalled her horror:
"He stormed to the corner of the living room and came back carrying a can of petrol. In a second, he’d tipped it over my head. The fumes made me gasp as the petrol ran down my face. It was burning my eyes and stinging my mouth.
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I screamed for him to stop. I ran into the bathroom to get a towel. My skin was drenched in petrol. I started mopping my face but Ed appeared and emptied the rest of the can over me. Then he just walked out of the flat.
I heard the click of a lock, and liquid being splashed around outside. I was shaking as I walked into the living room, not sure what I would find. The smell of the fumes was making my head foggy. Then there was a whooshing sound and a flash as a ball of flame came towards me and set fire to everything I could see.
My skin, my hair, my clothes, even the air was on fire. For a few seconds I just stood still. I was almost calm as I thought, ‘I’m going to die’. But somehow I found the strength to fight. I picked up a coffee table hurled it through the window then leapt through it myself."
Becky who suffered burns to 40% of her whole body, spent seven weeks in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital and months of recovery. She now feels like she is beginning to live a normal life.
McArthur was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the assault in January.
