Worksop: Teenager scarred for life after vicious bite attack on Halloween

A teenager has been scarred for life after being bitten by a female yob in an unprovoked incident of late-night city centre violence.
In CourtIn Court
In Court

The victim – 18-year-old Bethany Ward – and her friends were all in fancy dress costume when 20-year-old Kelly Hubbard, of Hawthorn Way, Carlton-in-Lindrick, launched a vicious attack.

Miss Ward was left needing 15 stitches to a wound above her eyebrow after Hubbard bit her during a 10-minute rampage.

Hubbard’s pal Jade Richardson, 25, of Beechcroft, Worksop, also waded in and attacked one of Miss Ward’s friends with her stilettos leaving two marks on her back.

Judge Recorder Timothy Hirst said the incident – on Halloween last year – was a night when ‘evil spirits took over.’

Sheffield Crown Court heard Miss Ward, a student at Sheffield City College, and her friend Eleanor Holdcroft, 19, had gone with friends into the Chicken Bar opposite Plug nightclub when a fracas broke out.

Bev Tait, prosecuting, said the incident was triggered after a drunken man who was with Hubbard and Richardson fell backwards into the group.

Hubbard shouted at the group, and Richardson squared up to Miss Ward, knocking the food out of her hands.

A fight broke out outside the takeaway which resulted in Hubbard pulling Miss Ward to the ground and biting her on the face.

As Miss Holdcroft tried to help, Richardson went for her with a pair of stilettos and struck her in the back.

Miss Tait said of the attack on Miss Ward: “It was a sustained and repeated assault with the use of teeth as a weapon.”

Miss Ward needed stitches to the wound.

In a statement she said she was ‘absolutely disgusted’ at being bitten.

She said: “I had no argument with the female. I was amazed and disgusted someone older would do this.”

Miss Holdcroft said: “It was completely irrational and unprovoked. I’m appalled two grown women would pick on teenage girls.”

Hubbard and Richardson each admitted assault causing actual bodily harm.

The court heard both had mental health problems.

Recorder Hirst told them: “Halloween is an evening associated with evil spirits and here evil spirits simply took over.”

He told Hubbard: “It just got worse and worse until you finally bit the lady in question.”

“She will carry that mark for the rest of her life.”

The judge gave her 12 months in a Young Offenders’ Institution suspended for two years, a supervision order and a curfew.

He made Richardson the subject of a hospital order until doctors decide she no longer needs treatment.

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