Gran cleared of attacking girl, 13
A gran walked free over a claim she attacked a schoolgirl in a park.
Isabel Connell, 61, had been accused of grabbing the 13-year-old and smacking her head off a metal pole.
The teenager claimed she had been attacked after being mistakenly accused of bullying another youngster.
Connell was acquitted after the assault charge was found not proven at Paisley Sheriff Court.
The pupil says she was left struggling to breathe after the woman began pushing her in the chest during a spat at a park in Foxbar.
She told the trial: “It was just me and my friends and the lady and her granddaughter.
“We were at the other side of the park at the climbing frame.
“We were on the roundabout playing music and stuff.
“There was another girl in the park. “She was upset. She said it was something to do with getting bullied.
“We were trying to help her be happy.
“They lady must have misheard or something. She went to hit my friend.
“She moved out the way. The lady’s hand came around and grabbed my jacket and T-shirt.
“It was tight around my neck.
“She was shouting and she was pushing me back and forward.
“I was scared. Every time her hand came back it would hit my chest. I couldn’t breathe.
“I didn’t have my inhaler with me. “I kept moving backwards and my head hit off the pole of the swing.”
Connell had been accused of attacking the girl — who cannot be named because of her age — in the park at Spey Avenue, Paisley.
The teenager told the court she had been in the playground with three pals.
She says she saw another girl, 12, crying nearby around 9pm on April 24 and tried to comfort her, but was attacked by Connell.
The teen claims the gran spoke with the upset child before she launched an attack.
The high school pupil says she made it home and told her dad she was assaulted and police were called.
Connell was with her granddaughter at the park.
She maintained she stepped in because the youngest girl had been bullied by the group, but insisted she never got physical.
The woman said: “I was angry. “But I didn’t lift a hand.
“The children around there all follow me to the shops.
“They call me Nana.
“I’m always spending £20 on sweets at the van because I never leave any of them out.”
Connell says she told the teenagers to leave and called her daughter.
She told the court the older girls left after more adults showed up.
Sheriff James Spy told Connell she was free to leave.
He said: “These were unfortunate events. The court has head two diametrically opposed versions of what happened in the playpark that night. I doubt very much the court has heard the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Connell, of Locksley Road, Paisley, was met by relatives when she left the dock.