A 33-YEAR-OLD woman who carried out a drunken attack on another woman outside a Huddersfield bar has been jailed for year.
Kerry Vishal launched a ferocious attack on 47-year-old Anne Rushworth after an exchange of words between the two women outside Chad’s Bar last September.
A judge at Bradford Crown Court was shown CCTV footage of the early hours violence during which Vishal kicked and punched Miss Rushworth despite the efforts of men at the scene to restrain her.
Judge Robert Bartfield said unless the CCTV recording was seen it was difficult to imagine, looking at Vishal in court, the ferocity of the attack.
The court heard that Vishal, who had a previous conviction for assaulting another woman back in 2005, pulled Miss Rushworth to the ground and tried repeatedly to kick or punch her.
“A number of males it seems tried to restrain you but such was your anger that you would not be restrained and when this lady tried to get up off the floor you picked up a chair and wielded it at her,” said Judge Bartfield.
The judge said if the complainant had been hit with the chair she could have suffered a lifelong injury or something more serious.
“It was only because one of the males managed to get between the chair and her head that that didn’t happen”, the judge noted.
Vishal kicked her victim full in the face and repeatedly punched her, leaving her virtually unconscious.
The court heard that the complainant suffered cuts to her mouth which bled profusely as well as bruising and swelling.
Vishal, of Trevelyan Street, Moldgreen, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, but Judge Bartfield said she was fortunate not to have faced a more serious allegation of wounding with intent.
In a victim impact statement Miss Rushworth described how the attack had changed her life and left her feeling afraid to go out in Huddersfield town centre on her own.
She described feeling numbness in her mouth as a result of the attack and having sleep problems.
Following Vishal’s arrest she initially claimed she had acted in self-defence, but after seeing the CCTV footage she said she felt ashamed and disgusted with what she had done.
Vishal confessed to starting the incident, but said she couldn’t really remember what happened because she was so drunk.
Her barrister Adam Birkby urged Judge Bartfield to consider suspending the prison sentence and submitted that the attack had been impulsive.
Mr Birkby said his client had worked hard to turn her life around in recent years and was now a trusted and valued chef.
He said Vishal had expressed genuine remorse and was suffering from a heart condition which would make any time in custody more difficult for her.
But Judge Bartfield said the public would be rightly outraged if such an attack was dealt with by anything other than a prison sentence.
