A now former "ice" addict who viciously stabbed her partner in their North Albury caravan park cabin has sobbed on being reassured she wasn't going to jail.
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The victim suffered what Albury Local Court magistrate Richard Funston described as a "nasty injury".
The attacked followed an argument between the pair on September 6.
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A police prosecutor had warned Mr Funston that a photograph of the leg wound was "quite graphic".
Mr Funston told Ricki West that if it hadn't been for her guilty plea she was unlikely to have avoided full-time jail.
West, 39, began crying and shaking slightly as it became clear how serious her offending was being treated.
"In any event, there seems to have been no further incidents since that time so it was the right decision to grant bail," Mr Funston said.
Defence lawyer Tim Hemsley said West had stopped using methamphetamine, had no criminal history "whatsoever" and now lived with her brother at Lismore in Victoria.
It had been argued that West provided assistance to the victim, 36, after stabbing him to the left thigh with a 30-centimetre knife.
But police said any suggestion that West helped by placing pressure on the wound until medical help arrived was wrong.
Rather, the argument between the pair continued right up until the time police arrived, which was when West calmly left.
She had also made clear to others that she was going to return to the scene - which she did and for which she was arrested a second time - to try to collect her belongings.
Nevertheless, police accepted it was "a very sad story".
West pleaded guilty to charges of reckless wounding and contravention of an apprehended violence order.
Mr Funston convicted West and placed her on a two-year community corrections order, which requires her to follow the "reasonable directions" of her treating psychologist over mental health issues.
"You've got yourself over a really insidious drug," he said.
"You have to look after yourself; that's what this order is essentially all about."