Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
BBC News - October 2, 2008
Investment accountant Gillian Massie, 36, was approached by 27-year-old Laura Reid as she walked in Oxgangs in April.
Reid asked her if she had ever been stabbed by someone with HIV. When Ms Massie replied no, she said: "You have now" and knifed her in the chest.
Lord Menzies told Reid that he would have jailed her for six years had she not pleaded guilty.
At the High Court in Edinburgh, he also ordered Reid to be kept under supervision for a further 18 months on her release.
Reid, of Moat Drive, Edinburgh, was originally charged with attempting to murder Ms Massie.
But the Crown accepted Reid's guilty plea to a reduced charge of assault to severe injury, permanent disfigurement and to the danger of her life.
Lord Menzies said: "The circumstances of this crime are truly shocking.
"This was a violent, completely unprovoked assault on a complete stranger."
The judge said: "I have had to deal with many worse crimes than this, but few have been more shocking for their sheer badness."
Lord Menzies pointed out that Reid was assessed as posing a high risk of harm to the general public.
Yoga class
The court heard she had asked her victim for directions to a bus stop shortly before launching her knife attack.
Reid had been drinking prior to the attack and was "somewhat puzzled" as to why she had a knife in her possession, said defence solicitor advocate Richard Goddard.
Advocate depute Alastair Carmichael said Reid was "completely unknown" to her victim, who had attended a yoga class at St John's Church in Edinburgh's Oxgangs Road.
Reid was detained by police on 12 May and denied having committed the knife assault.
Mr Goddard asked Lord Menzies to take into account her personal circumstances, including being a mother to a young child.
Reid's victim, who was in court for the sentencing, said afterwards she thought the sentence was "reasonable".
She said of the attack: "It was frightening. It shakes your confidence because I thought I lived in a nice area. I was just walking home from yoga, going about my own business."
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