Drinker hit victim on head with bottle
A WOMAN who smashed someone over the head with a bottle four times during a drunken brawl has been spared jail.
Chelsea Dodds, 30, pleaded guilty to carrying out the savage assault after an argument in a takeaway turned into a mass punch-up in the street on Ocean Road, South Shields.
Dodds also dragged her victim up by her hair and kicked her while she lay on the ground.
Newcastle Crown Court was told that Dodds was intoxicated and emotionally unstable following the news that her mother had died earlier that day.
After a day on the drink, she unleashed violence on a fellow reveller, cutting open her head with a glass alcopop bottle.
CCTV images showed a “large disturbance” involving several people outside a takeaway in the early hours of March 21, 2016.
Prosecuting solicitor Miss Jenny Haigh read out a statement from the victim of the assault, who said she was “unclear as to what happened” but that there had been “an argument between other people” inside the takeaway which then spilled outside.
Miss Haigh said: “The victim does not know how she became involved but said she was sticking up for someone.While it was going on, she felt a forceful blow to the back of her head but was not sure what had happened.”
Although the victim’s recollections were hazy, CCTV images revealed the true extent of the whole attack.
Dodds, originally from South Tyneside but now of Clough End Road, Manchester, pounded an alcopop bottle on her victim’s head four times, booted her while she lay on the floor and pulled her around by her hair.
Police officers arrived and Dodds, who was still holding the bottle, was immediately pointed out to police officers.
She accepted her involvement immediately, even saying to officers “you’re obviously looking for me”.
Officers asked Dodds “did you bottle someone?”, to which she replied: “I hit someone”, but later accepted that she had used a bottle as a weapon in the fight.
The court heard how Dodds had drunk five pints of beer, a Jack Daniels and four alcopops before the boozy brawl broke out.
When she was later shown CCTV footage of the attack, she said “Eeh, is that me?”, to the officers in the room but accepted that it was her carrying out the assault.
Her victim had no lasting injuries but did require staples for two deep cuts on her head.
Dodds’ defence solicitor, Mr Graham Cook, said that she had received news earlier that day that her mother had died due to a brain tumour and was going through a very difficult emotional period.
In the aftermath of her death, Mr Cook said, “close family links were not there and she chose to go out and deal with her feelings by drinking”.
He also argued that she should be spared jail on the grounds that she is the sole carer of a nine-year-old child and a custodial sentence would have a “dramatic effect” on both of them.
Explaining his reasoning for not locking Dodds up, Judge Robert Adams said “it was clearly not just you involved in criminal activity”.
He added: “You are deemed to be at low risk of re-offending and were dealing with the death of your mother which caused a significant downturn on this particular day and the following weeks.
“This was clearly out of character, you have no previous convictions and you’ve shown remorse.
“I hope this is the only time you find yourself in court.”
He handed her a six-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered her to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and 30 days of rehabilitation activity.