A drug addict who viciously attacked an elderly woman leaving her with stab wounds and a broken ankle has been jailed for eight years.Jamar Dill accosted Cleta Burgess, 63, as she waited for a taxi to take her home from a friend’s house on Berkeley Hill, Pembroke, around 5am on May 21, 2011.He then launched an unprovoked attack in order to steal $100 from her, stabbing her with a knife and hitting her in the head with a crash helmet.Dill denied being the culprit, and put Ms Burgess through the ordeal of a Supreme Court trial earlier this year. During that trial, Dill, 38, of Seagull Lane, Pembroke, made false allegations that Ms Burgess was a liar, drug addict and prostitute.In a victim impact statement read by prosecutor Nicole Smith during sentencing proceedings, Ms Burgess, now 64, said: “While being brutally attacked by the offender I had to endure the agony of being punched in the face and beaten in the head over and over with a crash helmet and stabbed. I also suffered a broken ankle in this attack.”She spent three days in hospital, and needed surgery to insert and then remove pins from her broken ankle, followed by physical therapy to teach her to walk again.“My ankle will never be the same again,” reported Ms Burgess. “I have pain to this day and there is nothing else that the doctor can do for me.”In addition to that injury, she suffered a sprain to her other ankle and two deep lacerations to her left hand.She said: “Not a day goes by that I am not haunted by the brutal attack. I will never be the same.”Ms Burgess described the trial earlier this year as “gut-wrenching” in the way that Dill lied about and “slandered her”.The jury saw through his version of events and convicted him by majority verdict.Prosecutor Ms Smith told Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves that Dill is a drug addict with a long criminal history including acts of dishonesty and violence. In a previous robbery in July 2005, he stole a man’s gold teeth.That victim, Gary Raynor, gave evidence that Dill and another man beat him up with a five-foot metal pole and hammer, leaving him with permanent damage to his left arm. Dill’s accomplice kicked him in the mouth and the pair made off with his clip-on gold teeth.Dill was jailed for five years for that offence and was still on probation for it when he robbed Ms Burgess.Ms Smith described the victim as being particularly vulnerable because she is of a small build in comparison to the size of the defendant. She said Dill has shown no remorse, and continues to insist that he is innocent.Defence lawyer Shade Subair said Dill was holding down two jobs to provide for his young child and fiancee at the time of the robbery.She also outlined his troubled family background (see sidebar).“If I can put it simply, he was at least trying,” she said.Jailing Dill, Mr Justice Greaves described him as a “dangerous man” with a “repulsive” criminal record, and said “there is every chance that he will do it again”.The judge went on to condemn Dill for dragging his victim’s name through the mud during the trial.“This was a terrible case. Not only because of the terrible attack upon this little elderly lady who was alone in those early hours of the morning on that lonely road an attack which resulted in the severe injuries that she suffered but also because of the vicious character-assassinating nature of the defence case that was mounted,” he said.He ordered that Dill must serve at least half of his eight year sentence before he can be considered for parole.He noted that Dill, according to pre-sentence reports, was a daily user of cocaine in the run-up to the crime who gets “out of control” when he does not have it.The judge recommended that he be given counselling to address his issues with drugs, anger and violence while he is incarcerated.