I feared I’d never see kids again after slash horror in nightclub
Jail for thug who left terrified Jeanette with 9in scar
A MUM who was left with a nineinch scar on her neck after she was slashed in a nightclub has told how “justice has been served” as her attacker was jailed.
Jeanette Irvine, 51, feared she would never see her children again when violent thug Marie Huggan sliced her throat open with a bottle in an unprovoked attack at De Vito’s in Arbroath two years ago. Jeanette needed 11 stitches to close the gaping wound after believing she would “bleed out and die” on the dancefloor. Huggan, 44, was locked up for nine months at Dundee Sheriff Court on Thursday after admitting she “deserves everything she gets” over the vicious assault. Mum-of-six Jeanette told the Record she has been left suffering from PTSD. She said: “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life. I honestly thought I was never going to see my kids again. She could have killed me. Every time I look in the mirror now
I’m reminded of what happened. If she’d hit me a few centimetres over, I would have bled to death right there.
“One of my daughters was there that night and I kept saying to her to look after my two youngest kids because I didn’t think I was going home.”
Jeanette added that the attack had a lasting impact on her mental health.
She said: “I was absolutely shocked and traumatised by it all during the first couple of months. All I could think about was death.
“It’s really damaged my mental health. I’m glad that she has been sent to prison and it wasn’t just community service or anything like that. It feels like justice has been served. She’s now been taken away from her family but she could have taken me away from mine forever.”
Jeanette said that she had never met Huggan before the night of her attack and still has no idea why she was targeted. She had been enjoying a night out with pals when mum-of-three Huggan launched into her tirade, shouting, “Do you know who I am?” and, “You should, don’t start s***”, before smashing a bottle and striking Jeanette.
She added: “I didn’t know her. I had never spoken to her before. I could never do something like that to someone. I just don’t have it in me.”
Huggan’s attack was caught on CCTV before security staff raced to help Jeanette, with a bouncer ripping off her shirt to compress the gushing wound.
Huggan was traced by police the following day and charged with causing assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement. She also admitted assaulting a second woman by knocking her to the ground and punching her.
Sheriff Paul Brown refused to give Huggan a community-based sentence despite her plea that she is a mum of three young children.