Boozy barmaid in 'slap' attack

Published on 7th September 2006 in News

A teenage barmaid appeared in court this week after a booze-fuelled attack on a 14-year-old girl.

Amy Penistone (19), of Richmond Road in Moorends, pleaded guilty to a single charge of assault when she appeared at Goole Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Mr Stephen Robinson told the court that at around 8.30pm on Wednesday, August 16, the 14-year-old victim was with friends on the village green in Rawcliffe.

The girl was approached by the defendant who said she had been drinking and was going to "get her".

Miss Penistone went to punch the girl but she managed to push her away. However, the defendant got hold of her hair and hit her across the face. Friends pulled them apart and a local resident came to the aid of the victim who was taken into their house so that she could call her mother. This witness told police the girl was visibly shaken by her ordeal. The girl told police she had been slapped five times across the face.

The defendant voluntarily attended Goole Police Station. In interview she told officers that she and the girl had got into an argument and she had lost her temper. She said she grabbed the girl's hair and slapped her across the face.

Speaking in her own defence Miss Penistone told magistrates that she never punched the girl but that she had slapped her and that the girl was pulling her hair too.

She confessed that she had drunk more than a quarter of a bottle of vodka that evening.

Magistrates adjourned sentencing Miss Penistone until the preparation of a pre-sentence report. She is due back in court on Tuesday, October 3, and was granted unconditional bail until then.