A woman killed herself, still traumatised by a disfiguring attack nine years before.

Caroline Thornton had been left for dead after being attacked in her garden by a former neighbour.

She had cheek and mouth bones and teeth surgically removed because of irreparable damage and also suffered brain damage, following her attack in 1995.

Consultant psychiatrist Sikander Kamlana told a Middlesbrough inquest, yesterday, the 55-year-old suffered from post traumatic stress disorder as a result of the assault.

"She appeared to be traumatised over the effect of her appearance following the attack.''

The strain wrecked her previously happy marriage to her husband Vince, increasing her feelings of low esteem and "unattractiveness'', while the later deaths of both her parents affected her depression, the psychiatrist said.

Mrs Thornton told The Northern Echo in 1996 she was serving " a life sentence of fear'' after Paul McGough, 32, her attacker, had his sentence for grievous bodily harm reduced from three years jail to two and a half years on appeal. who beat her round the head.

She wrote to Stockton North Labour MP Frank Cook and then Home Secretary Michael Howard calling for victims to have a say in the sentencing process.

McGough of Brendon Crescent, Billingham, was jailed at Teesside Crown Court in July 1996 after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

But appeal court Judges Rhys Davies, Lord Justice Evans and Mrs Justice Ebsworth, reduced his sentence saying there had been considerable tension between McGough and his former next-door neighbour, Mrs Thornton.

The appeal court heard the assault followed a four year feud between the former neighbours.

Michael Bosomworth, defending McGough, had said at the original trial: "His then neighbour appears to have been a lady who cannot keep her nose out of other people's business.''

Her son Phillip found his mother lying dead in her Lincoln Crescent, Billingham, home just a day after his 21st birthday, last November. She had left suicide notes on her bed and taken a fatal mixture of 30 tablets.

Teesside Coroner Michael Sheffield said the hand written notes left by Mrs Thornton indicated it was her intention to end her life.