Brave victim of gangland boss horror beating ‘vindicated’ after story wins top award

Olivia Creaney said she’d be able to tell her kids one day how she did the right thing by pursuing the gangland thug who left her looking like this and partially blind.

Her bruised and swollen face appeared on the front page of the Sunday World in June of last year with the simple headline ‘Blind Courage’.

On Tuesday, it won ‘Front Page of The year’ at the prestigious Regional Press Awards ceremony in London.

The 33-year-old mum-of-two was lucky to survive after Craigavon gangland boss Jim Carlisle launched a ferocious and unprovoked attack on her back in 2021.

Last year, we described the 33-year-old mum as possibly Ulster’s bravest woman after she refused calls to drop the charges and Carlisle was sent to prison for the cowardly assault.

And, in typically classy fashion, Olivia said she didn’t want to make a big fuss about the award as Carlisle had taken his own life in prison.

“I know what he did to me was horrific but at the end of the day he’s someone’s son and I know all too well the damage suicide can do to a family,” Olivia said last night.

“I’m proud of what I did and how I fought to have my day in court. The fact my story was chosen to win an award is vindication for me.

“This nearly cost me my life and I almost lost my kids. I’ll be able to show them when they grow up what it was all about.

“That’s all I’m going to say. Now it’s all over for me and I want to continue rebuilding my life with my kids in peace.”

The industry’s prestigious awards recognise outstanding reporting and innovation in both print and online across the UK.

Our story last year told how Olivia refused to drop charges of GBH, assault, intimidation and possessing a knife – despite Carlisle issuing threats to “murder her whole family”, forcing them to live elsewhere.

Carlisle, who had more than 170 criminal convictions, was a close associate of murdered gang boss Malcolm McKeown, who was shot dead five years ago.

She revealed the true horror of the savage attack carried out by career drug dealer and convicted thug Carlisle – who himself once survived a gangland murder bid.

She reveals how she resisted pressure from all quarters to drop the charges against the Craigavon gangster because she wanted her kids to know she had done the right thing by following through.

Speaking to us last year, Olivia said: “He fractured both sides of my jaw, fractured my right eye socket, broke my nose, shattered my left eye socket and left me with a metal plate holding my face together and he left me with two bleeds in the back of eyes going into my brain.

“I had never met Jim Carlisle until the night he attacked me. He stomped on my face and kicked me in the head over and over again.

“After what he did I had to see it through in court. I had to show my daughter that it’s not acceptable for a woman, or anyone for that matter, to be treated like that.

“And I had to teach my son that you can’t treat a woman like that and expect to get away with it.”

Carlisle stood in the dock and entered guilty pleas to inflicting grievous bodily harm, one count of common assault, possessing a knife and attempted intimidation arising from events on October 28 2021.

Further charges of GBH with intent and having weapons were “left on the books” by the prosecution.

He was facing up to five years behind bars but died in prison six weeks later.

Olivia says she was in a terrible state when her partner found her lying in the garden after she had been attacked.

“I couldn’t see anything and had to get my fingers to force my eyes open,” she said last June.

“I got my phone and only for the fact it had fingerprint recognition I was able to get into it and dial the last number which by complete luck was my partner.

“When he arrived I saw the car lights coming through the fence and I stood up and then collapsed in his arms.”

She was taken to Craigavon Area Hospital and soon after the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast but Olivia’s nightmare had only just begun.

“They said I needed emergency reconstruction surgery to fix my face,” she says. “The doctor told me whoever did this to you meant to do you real harm, you’re lucky to be alive. I told him ‘I don’t feel very lucky right now’.

“I kept asking about my kids, that’s all I cared about. I didn’t care about my face but the doctors kept telling me I had to worry about myself.

“Everyone wanted me to drop the charges but I refused. I knew I had to do the right thing.”