A young woman had to receive four stitches to her face after another patron in a nightclub attacked her, a court heard yesterday. Her assailant was ordered to pay £2,000 compensation and fined £150.
Jenny Lavelle (20), Cushlawn Park, Tallaght, was ordered to pay the money within six months or face imprisonment arising from the incident in Club M in Dublin. She pleaded guilty to assaulting Ms Gwen Keogh (22) on December 18th, 1998, when the pair met for the first time.
Dublin District Court heard she approached Ms Keogh with a glass in her hand and tried to throw its contents over her.
A struggle ensued, the glass was smashed and Ms Keogh ended up with a cut under her eye. She later got four stitches to the wound in St James's Hospital.
Ms Keogh agreed with Lavelle's solicitor, Mr John Woods, that the incident arose when she had been "chatting up someone you should not have been chatting up". She said however she did not do so intentionally.
Ms Lavelle, who cried when the judge ordered her to pay £2,000, apologised to Ms Keogh.
Judge Sean MacBride said it was a serious assault but fortunately the doctors had done a good job on Ms Keogh's eye. She was pursuing a separate case against the nightclub.