Women jailed after violent attack left woman with serious eye injuries

Women jailed after violent attack left woman with serious eye injuries

20 December 2017

TWO Downpatrick women have been jailed for an attack on a woman that has been described as shocking in its “viciousness and wickedness”.

Michelle Quinn (45) and Clare Higgins (29), both of Dalriada Road, forced their way into a house in Castlewellan on October 22 last year and attacked a woman with a bottle, leaving her needing 25 stitches in hospital.

The pair were sentenced at Antrim Crown Court on Thursday, having previously been remanded in custody awaiting sentence.

It was revealed in court the woman who was wounded in the attack had suffered “psychological damage’’ from the drunken attack which left her needing more than two dozen stitches to her eye, back and shoulder.

The court previously heard that on October 22, 2016, at around 11.30pm, drunken Quinn and Higgins turned up at their victim’s Leitrim home.

Prosecutor Laura Ivers told Downpatrick Crown Court the victim had previously been in a relationship with Michelle Quinn and Quinn was now in a relationship with co-defendant Clare Higgins.

Quinn, the court heard, held a grudge against the woman amid claims window blinds had disappeared from the home they had once shared.

Both defendants forced their way into the house and Higgins struck the woman with a bottle, inflicting what was described as a “significant wound to the eye” and forcing her to the ground.

Quinn and Higgins continued to scrab her when she fell, inflicting injuries to her eye, head and shoulder that required 25 stitches.

The court heard that the injured party was “whisked away” by a friend while the defendants argued among themselves.

However, the assault continued when the pair chased the woman into the garden before she eventually managed to lock herself in the kitchen until her relatives arrived. 

During the attack, a garden bench was damaged.

Ms Ivers told the court that the blood-stained defendants were still in the garden when police arrived. 

Both were heavily intoxicated, she said, and had to be physically restrained by police. Quinn was so drunk she vomited on an arresting officer.

When she was interviewed the following day, Quinn said she only had partial memory of what had happened, but denied having a weapon with her. 

Higgins also claimed she could not remember the incident because she had been so drunk.

The defendants, who have no previous convictions, had originally denied the offences but changed their pleas when charges were altered before their trial was due to begin in October. 

They each admitted wounding the woman and causing criminal damage to her property.

Charges of aggravated burglary and inflicting grievous bodily harm and a further charge of criminal damage were “left on the books in the usual terms’’.

Sentencing had been adjourned for four weeks pending a medical report on the injured party who claimed the assault has had a “material impact on her life”.

Quinn was jailed for a total of eight months for the offences of wounding and causing criminal damage. The court also made her the subject of a restraining order against the injured woman for a period of five years.

Higgins was handed a determinate sentence of one year and two months – with six months to be spent in jail and a further eight months on supervised licence following her release.

She received a concurrent three-month sentence for criminal damage.

The judge ruled that as part of her licence conditions she should co-operate with the Probation Service to “participate actively in an alcohol/drug counselling and/or treatment programme during the Probation period and to comply with the instructions given by or under the authority of the person in charge”.

She must also “actively participate in any programme of work recommended by her supervising officer designated to reduce any risk she may present and attend and co-operate in assessments by PBNI as to her suitability for programmes and other offence focused work’’.