A WOMAN needed 300 stitches in her face after it was cut to ribbons during an horrific attack in Huddersfield town centre.

Now the pair who attacked Sarah Brewins outside Huddersfield bus station have been jailed for six years.

And they were sent to prison by a judge who condemned the attack as “the most appalling, grotesque and cruel violence I have seen in over 40 years”.

Victim Miss Brewins was said to have started the violence when she hit 33-year-old Joanne Stokes with a bottle during the early evening disturbance near to the entrance of the multi-storey car park above the bus station, where alcoholics were known to gather to drink in public.

Crown court judge Jonathan Durham Hall  was yesterday shown graphic CCTV footage of Stokes carrying out a prolonged attack on Miss Brewins which left her on the ground with blood pouring down her face.

Prosecutor Ben Crosland said Stokes’ co-accused Peter Smith had handed her a piece of broken bottle which she used to cut Miss Brewins’ face.

During the attack last October the victim heard a man, who the prosecution alleged was Smith, telling Stokes to “twist it” and the complainant then felt blood running down her face.

Following the attack Miss Brewins was treated by plastic surgeons at the Bradford Royal Infirmary and had her wounds stitched during an operation under general anaethestic.

“The complainant says that about 300 stitches were put into her facial wounds,” Mr Crosland told Bradford Crown Court.

Stokes, of Buckrose Street, Fartown, was yesterday jailed for six years after the Judge described the attack as the most appalling, grotesque and cruel violence he had seen in over 40 years.

“Nobody who comes to this case or reviews this case must do so without first viewing that CCTV and when they do they will, I am sure share, in the sense of horror at the cruelty displayed”, he added.

Although a tearful Stokes claimed not to have known what she was doing at the time of the attack Judge Durham Hall said she had carried out a persistent, determined and vicious assault on Miss Brewins.

The judge accepted that Stokes had initially been seriously assaulted herself, but he said she had then used the remains of the bottle to cut her victim’s face to ribbons.

“Having been handed the glass by Mr Smith, with his encouragement and with his words, you proceeded to do as requested,” the judge told Stokes.

“You carved, twisted and ground the glass into that woman’s face.

“The result of your attack has been to disfigure that woman’s face in the most serious way. Doctors were able to treat her by using hundreds of stitches.

“She was in hospital for a period and has been treated very well, I am sure, by plastic surgeons.

“It may be the scars will heal but the mental turmoil will never.”

Stokes, who is now two months’ pregnant, and 34-yearold Smith, of Deighton Road, Deighton, both pleaded guilty to wounding Miss Brewins with intent to do her grievous bodily harm.

Smith was also jailed for six years.

Barrister Gillian Batts, for Stokes, said she had suffered recent tragedy in her life and that had contributed to her use of drink and drugs.

Miss Batts said Stokes had expressed a high level of remorse and had been distressed and upset by seeing the result of her actions.

Smith’s lawyer Mark Brookes said his client accepted giving the broken piece of bottle to Stokes.

He said Smith’s father was not well and it weighed heavily on him that he would not be able to provide day-to-day care for his father.