A WOMAN who set about her boyfriend’s ex-partner with a nail-studded length of wood, leaving her with a dent in her forehead, has escaped being jailed.
Michelle Harrison had pleaded guilty to assaulting her beautician victim, causing her actual bodily harm.
Harrison, 38, of Poins Close, Heathcote, Warwick, was sentenced to 14 months in prison suspended for two years by a judge at Warwick Crown Court who said she had had ‘a close shave.’
She was also ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity and made subject to a restraining order not to contact her victm or go near her Leamington home for two years.
Prosecutor Graeme Simpson said the victim was know to Harrison and “there was bad feeling between them.”
On the morning of August 1 last year, the victim took her children to her ex-partner Nathan Turpin’s home, but he was in an angry mood and said his new partner was going to batter her.
“The defendant then stormed up to her with a plank of wood with a nail embedded in it at each end, and a ferocious attack ensued and she was struck to the face, head and neck.”
As a result of the vicious attack, the victim suffered facial injuries and a number of puncture wounds, said Mr Simpson.
In a statement the victim said she has since suffered from nightmares and psychological trauma, and has been in fear of leaving the house with her children, who saw the attack on her.
She said she now has a dent in her forehead from one of the blows and damage to a ligament in one of her fingers, which has affected her work as a beauty therapist, leaving her unable to perform certain treatments.
Mr Simpson added when Harrison, whose previous convictions included five offences of violence, was arrested later that day she claimed she had acted in self-defence.
Ian Gold, defending, said: “You will hear no excuses by my client, through me, put before the court. She has accepted all of the prosecution case.
“On the day in question my client was in a very bad mental and physical state. She suffers from epilepsy and multiple personality disorder, and she was recovering from drug addiction.
“She had very little recollection of the incident. She had wickedly beaten this lady in a savage way, and has regretted it from that day to this.
“She has had over a year to worry about the consequences of what she’s done and to seek to rehabilitate herself, and this she has done in a significant way.”
Sentencing Harrison, Recorder Francesca Levett told her: “The attack was unprovoked, and it was a substantial attack. The children were screaming and could clearly see their mother being attacked by you.
“But I take into account your remorse, which I accept is genuine, and the efforts you have made to change your life since then. It has been a close shave. Keep up the good work.”
