A LAW student attacked a fellow hen party guest with a bottle, leaving her with a two-inch cut to the forehead just days before the wedding.
Emily Summers lashed out at the sister of the bride in the smoking area of East Coast Social, in London Road, Southend, after an earlier row on the night of March 18.
Southend Magistrates’ Court heard the victim had to use Photoshop to edit the embarrassing wedding snaps and has since forked out £280 for laser treatment.
Lesley Chipps, prosecuting, said: “At around 6.30pm the complainant was at East Coast Social where there was a hen party function with a private booth.
“During the course of the evening there had been an incident and it’s said that Miss Summers had thrown some drink over the complainant as a result of an argument within the hen party.
“The complainant went outside where Miss Summers was in the smoking area. She had a bottle in her hand, she hit her with the bottle once to the side of the head and once to the forehead, causing a cut.”
Miss Chipps said the bottle broke, although Summers, 22, of Southend, denies hitting the woman twice and says the bottle did not break. The victim went to Southend Hospital where the cut was glued.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, she said: “I am still upset and disappointed that someone could do this to me. I was with a group of people who were celebrating my sister’s hen party.
“I had to attend her wedding with a cut to the middle of my forehead, we had to have all the photos altered and dimmed so it didn’t show.”
Simon Samuels, mitigating, said the mother-of-two had no previous convictions, had contacted the police herself after initially fleeing the scene and admitted assault by beating.
He said Summers was in the second year of an Open University law degree and the offence was driven by a growing problem with alcohol.
He said: “This is a case of a young woman taking on too much, too young. She married at the age of 19 and within two years she was a mother-of-two.
“She had a few hours of freedom where the children would be looked after by someone else. Quite simply, she drank far too much alcohol.”
Summers was told to pay £750 in compensation and carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article