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'Years in jail' for bottle attacker
A WOMAN found guilty of glassing a mum-of-two outside a Sheffield pub faces 'years' behind bars after breaching a suspended sentence imposed for a similar attack a year before.
Jurors took three hours to find Karen Lee guilty of smashing a bottle into Laurie Swift's face in a row over a man outside The New Crown pub, Handsworth.
The incident was captured on CCTV and images were shown several times during the three-day trial. Lee could be seen raising her hand holding a bottle before smashing it down into Ms Swift's face.
After returning their verdict, jurors heard Lee, aged 30, was already subject to a 10-month suspended sentence at the time of the attack.
That sentence imposed for an assault outside a city nightclub the year before. She had been convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and battery against two girls outside The Embassy Club in Intake, in May 2007.
Remanding her in custody for sentencing later this month, Judge Michael Smith told Lee: "You already had a threat of a prison sentence hanging over your head.
"The jury has now convicted you of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm - a serious charge. I am not one to build up people's hopes. You will be remanded in custody until sentence."
Lee's best friend, Collette Jerems, aged 30, admitted affray after Judge Smith ruled there was insufficient evidence against her for a charge of wounding with intent.
Jerems, of Greenland Drive, Darnall, was seen on film fighting with Ms Swift before and after the bottle blow.
She was given a four-month electronically tagged curfew order. The judge said: "I hope you realise what trouble it can lead to when you start drinking and getting involved with public violence. If you don't, I hope you will.
"Your friend will be going to prison for a sentence measuring years. If you get yourself involved again you will receive the same type of punishment."
Trouble erupted between Jerems and Ms Swift because Jerems was upset she had not been allowed to attend the funeral of Alan Winters, who was Ms Swift's late partner, and the father of her younger child, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
Mr Winters died in 2008 after an accident at DavyMarkham engineering, Darnall, leaving Ms Swift pregnant. She named her son Alan.
There was 'bad feeling' between Ms Swift and Lee, because her sister Suzanne was a former partner of Mr Winters.
Lee claimed she got involved to try to break up the scuffle between Jerems and Ms Swift, and she 'threw' a bottle between them to split them up.
Ms Swift suffered gashes to her nose and eyebrow and needed surgery on her nose.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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