Let down by law after terrifying street attack by ‘mad woman’
28-WEEK SENTENCE SLAMMED AFTER GUILTY PLEAS TO THREE ASSAULTS
A WOMAN has recalled the “terrifying” moment she was attacked by a stranger on her way to work.
She was walking to start her shift at Radford Medical Centre when she was punched, kicked and abused by Sarah Cairns, 25, of Norton Street in Radford.
Cairns, who she had never met, launched the vicious attack on August 5 last year.
It has left her victim mentally scarred and unable to leave the house on her own.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, says: “All I was doing was walking to work. The next thing I know someone has passed me. They turned around and started swearing – saying ‘what the hell are you looking at?’
“I tried to get to work – she wouldn’t let me. She was like a mad woman.
“I didn’t say anything and she came right up to my face. She was saying ‘you work here, don’t you?.’ She was swearing and shouting. Then she kicked me in the groin and punched me.
“I was screaming and crying – I’ve never been attacked like that before in my life. It was just awful. I froze. I couldn’t protect myself.”
After members of the public tried to stop the attack, Cairns shouted while her victim was lying by the roadside.
“I was a wreck,” the woman continued.
“I was sobbing uncontrollably, I was in pain, I was petrified.
“I rang one of my colleagues and told her I had just been attacked.
“I’d never seen her [Cairns] before. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just horrible.”
She added: “Since then, I’ve had to have time off work. I’m on my own.
I have no other income. I’ve lost money. I can’t go out on my own and I feel like a prisoner in my own home. I can only go out if I feel like someone is with me.
“Someone has to take me to and from work. It’s been horrendous. It’s completely changed me life.”
The woman was one of three of Cairns’ victims who were all attacked in the street, despite being a complete stranger to her.
One attack happened after an exchange of words with a mother pushing a child’s stroller on December 2, 2020. Adhd-sufferer Cairns rained blows to the back of the mum’s head, leaving her in shock and fearful for her crying child.
In another incident, a retired victim, who used a walking frame, was punched and pushed by Cairns. It happened on March 1, 2021, when the victim was getting off the number 79 bus.
Appearing at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court, Cairns – who has an emotionally unstable personality disorder – pleaded guilty to two assaults and an offence of criminal damage.
She was found guilty in her absence of the third assault and using threatening behaviour.
The judge, who imposed a total sentence of 28 weeks, made a permament restraining order concerning the victims and ordered she pay them compensation.
“To hear she got 28 weeks is absolutely disgusting,” her third victim said.
“What she has done to me has changed my life.
“All I do is go to work, work hard and don’t cause any problems – so the legal system has really let me down.”
Cairns has eight previous convictions for assaulting people – one of them involving attacking a police officer.
The judge told her: “It seems you assault people for a perceived dirty look or perceived insult.”
To hear she got 28 weeks is disgusting. What she has done to me has changed my life
Victim of Sarah Cairns