Welly-booted party-goer told catfight was “not ladylike”

During the confrontation Amy Perkins, 25, and barmaid Katherine Fay crashed through a wooden balustrade rail. Miss Fay was left bruised and with clumps of her hair pulled out.

But such behaviour is not uncommon in Essex, one of the county’s senior judges revealed.

As he imposed a 12-month community order on Perkins, Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC said: “Incidents of this kind are too frequent. People ought to be able to go out for a peaceful evening.”

And he told Perkins, of Highfields, Langley Upper Green, Clavering: “It’s not very ladylike or attractive to be involved in allegations of this kind.”

Perkins, who admitted assault causing actual bodily harm at the Fox and Hounds Pub in Clavering on September 25 last year, was given 120 hours unpaid work and banned from pubs and clubs within a three miles of Clavering for three months.

Judge Goldstaub said: “You’ve got a tendency to drink too much and when you’re drunk you’ve got a tendency to be violent - you’re going to have to watch it.

“At the Fox and Hounds in September last year when you had made some remark - an offensive remark - to a friend of yours and they had reported it to the person most concerned, this caused extreme ill-feeling.

“You accosted the person - they may have responded - and you launched yourself at the complainant, grabbed her hair and pulled it, scratching her.”

The catfight erupted after a “derogatory remark” by Perkins about another girl’s relationship, the court heard.

They clashed in a “brief encounter” before they both fell through a wooden balastrade rail ending up on the floor.

Perkins “took hold” of Miss Fay around the neck, leaving “superficial” bruising and a mark at the base of her neck, and removed two clumps of her hair.

Speaking afterwards, Perkins said: “It was massively a catfight - I was wearing a fertiliser bag and a pair of wellingtons.”

Miss Fay declined to comment.