AN ‘IMPRESSIVE ‘ student who slashed her ex-boyfriend with a blade could avoid jail thanks to her promising medical career.

Lavinia Woodward’s dreams of becoming a heart surgeon were crippled when she attacked her former flame after swigging alcohol and taking drugs.

But the Oxford University student, who is currently living in Italian city Milan with her mother, was handed a lifeline when Judge Ian Pringle QC hinted she could be spared jail for the violent tirade at Christ Church.

Sitting at Oxford Crown Court on Friday, the judge revealed he would take an ‘exceptional’ course and defer sentence for four months, adding: “It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off, to prevent this extraordinary able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to, would be a sentence which would be too severe.

“What you did will never, I know, leave you but it was pretty awful, and normally it would attract a custodial sentence, whether it is immediate or suspended.”

Woodward, who met her ex-partner on dating app Tinder, became ‘erratic’ and rude towards her victim during their relationship, prosecutor Cathy Olliver said.

The victim - a Cambridge University student - was staying at the college when he popped out to collect her medication at about 6pm on December 30 last year.

He returned shortly after and decided to call the 24-year-old’s mother on Skype when Woodward’s behaviour ‘deteriorated’.

Woodward then swung her arms and thumped him in the face, before lunging at him with a bread knife and stabbing him in the leg.

The victim leapt out, pushing his hands forward to defend himself and thrusting Woodward away.

But she hurled a laptop, glass and jam jar at him before scratching and stabbing herself with the blade.

Defence barrister James Sturman QC said drug addict Woodward, of Christ Church, St Aldates, Oxford, had a ‘very troubled’ life and was abused at the hands of another ex-partner.

Her prospects of becoming a surgeon are ‘almost impossible’ as she will have to disclose her conviction to employers, he said.

But he claimed Christ Church will allow her to return to the college in October because she ‘is that bright’, with articles published in medical journals.

Woodward, who admitted unlawful wounding and will be sentenced on September 25, was handed a restraining order, and told to stay drug free and not re-offend.