Guilty, bride who attacked female guest and ended up in cells on her wedding day
IT should have been the happiest occasion of their lives.
But a couple’s wedding day was ruined after the bride attacked a female guest and ended up in the cells.
Jealous Audrey Stevenson admitted grabbing her friend Veronica Bannon by the hair and pushing her, causing her to hit her head on a door.
It is understood that Stevenson had been angered by the attention Miss Bannon appeared to be paying to her new husband, Scott Allan.
Rather than the groom carrying his new bride over the threshold, the pair were arrested by police after being accused of behaving in an abusive manner and spent the weekend in separate cells.
They then appeared in court from custody on the Monday, having missed their honeymoon flight to Mexico.
Depute fiscal Katrine Craig yesterday produced photographs showing Miss Bannon’s badly bruised and bloody face following the attack.
The bride and groom denied the charges against them at their first court appearance and had a date set for trial, but were initially banned from staying overnight together at the home they shared in Bo’ness, West Lothian.
Sheriff Martin Edington told the couple’s lawyers at the time that he was not willing to let them return to the same house in case ‘recriminations broke out’.
He remarked: ‘This was arguably the ruination of one of the biggest days of their lives and you’re telling me no one’s going to harbour any ill feeling.
‘I’m not saying they shouldn’t be able to contact each other – but not at the same address.’
Allan’s lawyer Sonia Cheema said her client had expressed ‘extreme shame’ for having found himself in the situation he was in.
The special bail conditions barring Stevenson and Allan from sleeping in the same house were lifted a few days later after the court was told there had been no reports of any domestic abuse.
Stevenson had originally denied assaulting Miss Bannon at the Friday evening wedding reception at the Star and Garter Hotel in Linlithgow on July 28 last year.
But when the case was called for trial at Livingston Sheriff Court yesterday, she changed her plea at the last minute to guilty.
Stevenson and Allan had also been accused of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear or alarm by struggling and fighting with each other at the reception.
However, after legal discussions, the Crown accepted their denials of that charge and of a further allegation that Stevenson had breached her bail conditions by contacting the victim.
Darryl Lovie, defending the bride, said there had been ‘particular circumstances’ surrounding the offence.
He said: ‘It was in a public house, in fact it was a wedding reception – my client’s wedding reception.’
Mr Lovie suggested the sheriff should hear the details of what happened and deal with his client by admonishing her or imposing a fine and a compensation order.
However, after being shown the victim’s injuries Sheriff Susan Craig expressed concern that the assault had occurred in a public place.
She said: ‘For an assault in a pub to cause that amount of bruising, the court is not going to be inclined to deal with the matter simply by way of a financial penalty. I’m going to order that a criminal justice social work report be obtained so the court has a full range of sentencing options open to it.’
Stevenson, 46, had sentence deferred for background reports and her husband Allan, 55, walked free after the prosecution accepted his not guilty plea.
Stevenson will return to court for sentencing on May 10.
‘Ruination of one of the biggest days ’