No jail for fiancée who hit love rival (From The Oxford Times)

No jail for fiancée who hit love rival

11:30am Saturday 31st July 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(3)

A WOMAN who attacked a love rival on the night of her engagement party in Oxford has avoided a prison sentence.

Ashleigh Curtis, 21, of Field Avenue, Blackbird Leys, swung a punch at Corinne Underwood early on December 27 last year after spending Boxing Day night at clubs in the city centre, where she was celebrating her engagement.

Miss Underwood was attacked over a previous relationship with Curtis’s fiancé, Oxford Crown court heard yesterday.

The pair had always denied the relationship, but Curtis had discovered the truth some months before the attack, said James Riley, defending.

In addition, Curtis had lost her job as a forklift truck driver five days earlier, which had “made her a little bit low,”.

CCTV footage showed Curtis running up to Miss Underwood and punching her, while holding a glass bottle. She pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm at an earlier hearing.

Judge Julian Hall told Curtis to pay £400 compensation to her victim and imposed a seven-month curfew, banning her from leaving home between 9pm and 3am.

Mr Riley told the judge Curtis and her fiancé were now “working through their issues” and remained engaged.