Glass attack on nightclub dancefloor

4:20am Saturday 19th July 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A WOMAN smashed a glass into the ear of her former boyfriend in a drunken altercation on a nightclub dancefloor.

Caroline Trodden, 19, of Greenbank Road, Darlington, had been drinking in the town's Escapade nightclub when she committed the offence of unlawful wounding.

Graeme Gaston, prosecuting at Teesside Crown Court, said Trodden's ex-boyfriend, George Harker, had separately been out with his own friends drinking on the night of the attack, September 21 last year.

He noticed the defendant in the nightclub and went to speak to her, buying her a drink.

The pair separated, but moments later Trodden marched up to Harker and threw the contents of her drink into his face, before smashing the glass into his left ear.

Mr Gaston said Trodden then whispered "Don't make a ding out of me" to Harker, who required hospital treatment for lacerations to his neck and ear.

Trodden was arrested by police and said she "did not mean to do it that bad".

Tom Mitchell, mitigating, said Trodden was not a violent woman and realised that binge drinking for someone her age was "not the best of things to do".

He said: "They were in a casual relationship. On the night in question there was drink and some bad feeling."

Mr Mitchell said the defendant had settled down with a new partner and was also due to begin a college course at Darlington College in September.

Judge Tony Briggs gave Trodden, who admitted the offence, a 12 month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. She was also given an 18 month supervision order.