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Drag queens clash over best dress
IT WAS handbags at lunchtime when two drag queens clashed in Barnsley town centre in a row over who had the best dresses.
Funny Gals nightclub star Daffy Dill - 23-year-old James Thain - attacked his boss Pricilla in the street after he sacked his partner and fellow drag queen, Barnsley magistrates heard.
Pricilla - Simon Merry, aged 39 - was forced to take refuge in a hairdressers as he fled his attacker on Wellington Street.
Crimper Helen Brook said: "The first one came in holding his phone saying he wanted to ring the police. The second was booting him up the bum."
After the incident, Thain set up a website called the Anti-Pricilla Society to "rubbish" his victim.
Barnsley Magistrates Court heard how three days previously Mr Merry, the Barnsley' club's entertainment manager, had sacked drag queen Sally Bowls - Thain's partner Simon Patterson.
Thain told the court: "It was just jealousy. Simon had better dresses and was a better drag queen."
Mr Merry said of the attack: "He punched me. I was pushed against a wall and he called me a fake, a conman, a liar and various other names."
He said he took refuge in the hairdressers and added: "He was trying to get into the shop as we shut the door and hurled verbal abuse at me through the door.
"I looked out and saw James slam my laptop onto the ground."
Mr Merry suffered a swollen hand and a grazed cheek. His laptop was smashed beyond repair.
Thain, from Ossett near Wakefield, denied common assault and criminal damage and said it must have been somebody else, although the court heard the hairdresser picked him out from an identity parade.
He claimed he heard about the attack later and said: "I just thought there's enough people out there that don't like him."
Thain said he set up the Anti-Pricilla website to get revenge and discredit him.
He denied losing his temper after a clear-the-air meeting with club bosses but admitted "bitching between drag queens, which is common in the dressing room".
Thain was found guilty of assault and criminal damage and given a 12-month community service order and 80 hours of unpaid work.
He must pay 50 compensation to Mr Merry and 700 damages.
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With court costs the incident cost Thain 1,451.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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