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Delight over glass attack conviction
A MUM-of-two said she is "over the moon" after a woman who glassed her in the face outside a Sheffield pub was convicted of the violent attack.
Laurie Swift, from Darnall, was hit in the face with a glass bottle by Karen Lee last Christmas Eve outside The New Crown pub in Handsworth.
Lee, aged 30, was warned by a judge at Sheffield Crown Court she faces 'years' behind bars for the bloody attack, which was caught on CCTV images shown to jurors during the trial.
Laurie told The Star today: "I'm really pleased she was found guilty but I still can't believe it went to a trial. It was blatant, there on the CCTV footage - it showed clearly what she was doing."
Laurie said she had already been dreading last Christmas - her first without her partner Alan Winters - when she was bottled. He had died five months earlier in a shock accident at work, leaving Laurie eight months' pregnant and mum to daughter Leah, now eight.
The 26-year-old, who gave birth to Alan Junior last summer, was also dealing with the tragic loss of her niece. The five-year-old died in October last year, three months to the day after Alan, after suffering cerebral palsy and epilepsy all her life.
Laurie said she had endured problems with Lee ever since she started going out with Alan two years earlier, because he had once been in relationship with Lee's sister, Suzanne.
There had also been trouble with Lee's best friend Collette Jerems, who started the fight outside the pub and admitted affray.
"For years we lived with it, and I just ignored them when we used to see them out," said Laurie.
"But that night I just wanted an end to it - I just wanted it to stop. I went over to tell Collette that - I think I said something like I thought they'd be happy now I hadn't got Alan anymore, and I asked them to leave me alone.
"Instead I got attacked."
Laurie has just undergone surgery on the injuries to her nose, and has been told she was lucky not to have been blinded.
"The last year has been absolutely horrendous," she said. "I've never had chance to properly come to terms with what happened to Alan because of all the other things that have been going on.
"It's been really hard working trying to deal with everything and bring up two children on my own."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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