Warning
‘SHE WENT THERE TO KILL’
Ben Rimmer relives horror axe attack by stranger who ‘nearly cut my head in half’ as he slams ‘easy’ 4½ year sentence
CCTV shows drugged up Evie Amati, 26, swinging a 4lb axe at his face
A DAD whose head was almost "cut in half" in an axe attack by a drugged-up stranger has slammed her soft 4½ year jail sentence.
Ben Rimmer, 32, revealed his horror injuries as he launched an appeal for Evie Amati to be locked up for at least ten years for trying to kill him and two others.
10
Terrifying CCTV showed how Amati stalked round the petrol station 7-Eleven with a long-handle 4lb wood chopper.
After circling the shop in an agitated manner she struck up a conversation with Ben, who had popped in to buy a pie on his way home at 2.20am.
Suddenly Amati swung the axe at Ben's face before using it to club Sharon Hacker, 43, who was saved from death by her thick dreadlocks.
Ben said today: “If I hadn’t turned my head at the last minute she would have cut my head in half.
“She went there to kill. It’s only pure luck that I’m alive.”
A court heard the blade missed his brain by millimetres as it sliced through his nose and eye socket.
'DOSED UP ON LOVE DRUG'
Plastic surgeons rebuilt his face with four titanium plates. He can feel the one round his eye moving under his skin when he touches it.
Ben does not remember all of the encounter because of his head injury, but says at first he thought Amati's axe was a fancy dress prop.
He : “I remember being struck. But I turned at the last minute, otherwise she would have chopped through my head straight through the front of my face.
“I think I must have seen it coming.”
He was not immediately aware of what had happened other than “it was like a king hit”.
He said: “It didn’t register straight away, it took about 30 seconds.
“I fell to the ground. I was prone, bleeding profusely.”
10
10
10
Ben, whose wife was pregnant, did not want cops to tell her what happened but later spoke to her by phone from hospital.
He was vomiting blood that was pouring down his throat from his mangled nose.
Ben spoke out today two years on from the January 2017 horror in Sydney, Australia, to hit out at Amati's sentence.
He said she was "calculating" and "not remorseful", adding: “She’ll do her time easily and get paroled in mid-2021. It’s played out perfectly for her, perhaps better than she expected.”
Amati was handed a sentence of nine years with a non-parole period of 4½ years after being convicted of three counts of attempted murder.
A says the standard penalty for attempted murder is ten years without parole.
'I'M GOING TO KILL A LOT OF PEOPLE'
Transgender Amati, a trade union organiser, went prowling with the axe after storming out of a disastrous Tinder date hours earlier.
She was dosed up on psychedelic “love drug” MDA, antidepressants, cannabis, vodka and transgender hormones, the court heard.
Just after 1am she wrote online: “One day I am going to kill a lot of people”, and sent a message to one of the women she had been on a date with saying: “Most people deserve to die, I hate people”.
She listened to the dark-themed song Flatline by US metal band Periphery and changed her Facebook status to: “Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do.”
After doing a lap of the shop and attacking Ben she swung the axe at Sharon, who was at the counter buying milk.
Amati tried to hit her a second time as she lay sprawled on the ground but narrowly missed.
CCTV showed her then calmly walking away across the forecourt.
She also tried to kill a homeless man nearby, then feigned unconsciousness when cops tracked her down in the front garden of a house.
Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do
Evie Amati's Facebook status
Her police interview hours after the bloody rampage showed her coldly refusing to answer questions.
In a steady voice, Amati says over and over: “I respectfully choose to exercise my right to remain silent”.
Her lawyers tried to claim insanity but that was rejected by the jury.
While on remand she spent time in three women's jails where she bullied other inmates, .
In 2017 shopkeeper Sharon described the terrifying attack which left her with a skull fracture.
She told Network Ten: “She just came with full force and swung and struck the man across the face.
MOST READ IN WORLD NEWS
“Then (she) turned immediately around to me and again, with both hands, came through and struck me with the axe in the back of the head.
“And then as I was falling forward, (she) came in again and came down and struck me again.
“I’m just very lucky that I have very thick dreadlocks.”
10
10
10
10
10
10
Axe attacker Eve Amati refuses to answer questions in police interview
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368.
Topics