A HEROIN addict who gouged a woman’s eyes after breaking into her home has been jailed for three years and three months.

Julie Beale, 41, a mum-of-four, carried out the terrifying assault on the woman at her home in Ravenscourt Drive, Basildon, in the early hours of May 18.

The woman was asleep on her sofa downstairs and woke to find Beale crawling about on her hands and knees.

When she asked what was going on, Beale grabbed both of her arms to restrain her.

The woman then called out for help from her brother, who was asleep upstairs, but Beale attacked again and inserted fingers into both of her eyes and pushed down hard.

Beale then continued the attack on the temporarily blinded woman by pulling her hair and scratching her face and eyes.

It only stopped when the woman’s brother and children came downstairs to see what was happening.

Beale, who was high on heroin, begged them not to call police, but did not run.

Then she sat calmly in the dining room until officers arrived to arrest her. She had only been released from prison 11 days earlier after serving time for other burglaries.

Yvette Kresner, mitigating, said Beale was a mother who had grown up in the care system following the death of her father when she was ten.

She said she entered the house after spotting an open window. She said it was an opportunistic crime and the attack was not pre-meditated.

Miss Kresner said: “She has committed burglaries in the past, but has never come face to face with the homeowner before. She was shocked to find the woman asleep on the sofa and she panicked.”

Judge Alan Saggerson, sitting at Basildon Crown Court, said Beale was a prolific burglar who had carried out a terrifying attack.

He sentenced her to three-years for the burglary, and handed down a consecutive three-month term for the assault.

Beale, of The Upway, Basildon, admitted both charges at an earlier hearing.