A female customer took exception to being asked to leave a workingmen’s club, a court heard.

Paige Chelsea Wilkinson picked up a half-full glass and threw it at a member of staff at Fishburn Workingmen’s Club, at 10pm on March 17.

Durham Crown Court was told the glass hit a table, causing a spillage of liquid which was cleaned up by the member of staff.

Reece Williams, prosecuting, said Wilkinson was ushered out of the premises and went home, from where her mother rang the police after she put out windows at her own house.

(Image: The Northern Echo)

Her mother was concerned as Wilkinson went out again, supposedly seeking to return to the club.

Mr Williams said on the way there she crossed paths with an elderly male customer who was walking home having left the club.

She went over to him and struck him “numerous times” before walking away.

He attempted to walk away, himself, but Wilkinson went back to him and resumed her attack, hitting him again several times to the head and face.

Mr Williams said the victim tried to walk away to a nearby smoking shelter, but when he got there Wilkinson carried on assaulting him, biting him to the hand, drawing blood, and ripping a clump of his hair from his head, which was found discarded on the ground.

Police responded to numerous 999 calls and, when she was being arrested, she began spitting on the ground and, when asked to stop, she spat at the officer’s face, hitting his right cheek with spittle.

She was eventually taken to Peterlee Police Station, where she admitted the various offences arising from the evening.

Appearing before magistrates a week after the incident, Wilkinson admitted charges of assault causing actual bodily harm, criminal damage and assaulting an emergency worker.

Mr Williams told the crown court sentencing hearing that the 27-year-old defendant of Brecon Terrace, Fishburn, has two convictions on her record for four offences, including another for assaulting an emergency worker, from December last year.

(Image: The Northern Echo) Calum McNicholas, in mitigation, said there were three documents submitted to the court on the defendant’s behalf, which were a psychiatrist’s assessment and a Probation Service report, with a recent update.

Judge Jo Kidd told Mr McNicholas she had read the reports and she felt able to “step back from immediate custody, in this case”.

The judge asked the defendant if she was receiving medication for mental health issues, to which Wilkinson confirmed that she was.

Judge Kidd then told her: “You know how close you have come to going down those steps (from the dock to the court cells)."

Imposing a ten-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, she ordered the defendant to take part in 20 rehabilitation activity days overseen by the Probation Service and made her subject to an alcohol abstinence order for 120 days, for which a monitoring tag would be fitted.

The judge said: “I’m reserving any breaches in this case to myself.

“If you breach this order, you will be back in front of me, and I will send you to prison.

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"If you commit further offences, I'll send you to prison for that and anything else you have done.

“So, if you see me again, you know what to expect.”

Wilkinson was also ordered to pay £150 costs, but the judge spared making a compensation order due to the defendant’s financial circumstances.