AFTER having her first taste of prison, a violent young woman who had assaulted a frail pensioner at Wellesbourne market, returned to court in a far less belligerent frame of mind.
From defiantly turning her back on a judge at Warwick Crown Court, it was a more subdued Xena Randell who stood in the dock after being remanded in custody for four days.
And her barrister Dean Easthope said: “She tells me she has not enjoyed the last four days, her first spell in custody, and she is keen to do anything she can to avoid another spell.”
So Judge Anthony Potter did what he had been planning to do before Randell’s stroppy display – and deferred sentence on her until November.
The 19-year-old, of Burrowes Street, Walsall, who had a string of offences of violence, had pleaded guilty to assaulting 70-year-old Marion Ryan.
Prosecutor Caroline Harris said Randell’s grandfather and her 70-year-old victim, who suffers from osteoporosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, belonged to a group which regularly organised coach trips.
In August last year Randell and her mother accompanied her grandfather on one such outing to Warwickshire, to visit Wellesbourne market and then Stratford.
But after arriving at the market Randell and her mother went off shopping, leaving her grandfather and the 70-year-old woman together, and returned later than expected.
When the woman complained Randell pushed her over and she hit her head. It later became apparent she had a fracture to her pelvis.
When Randell was arrested, she said she had pushed the pensioner out of the way ‘because she was in my space.’
Miss Harris pointed out Randell had 13 convictions for 49 offences, the majority of them for violence, and was currently subject to a suspended sentence for assaulting a police officer.
Turaj Hodge, defending at the original hearing, said Randell was in care from the age of nine until she was 18, but had recently been getting her relationship with her mother back on track, and was helping to care for her grandfather who has been given six months to live.
After she had had the Bank Holiday weekend to reflect on her petulant behaviour, Judge Potter told her: “I am prepared to give you a chance, because it seems to me that living at your mother’s address, and having had a taste of custody, you may be in a position to make something of your life.
Judge Potter said he would impose a community order if she made efforts to start a course at college ot look for a job, continued living with her mother and helped care for her grandfather.
