Scarborough woman labelled a "thug" and a "disgrace" by judge after attacking woman in street

Mother-of-four Kayleigh Booth, 28, had followed the victim after she had left a 60th birthday party at the Roscoe Rooms in Scarborough town centre.

At about 1am on October 22 last year, the named victim left the party and was walking to a taxi office when Booth appeared and lunged at her.

Booth was pulled off the woman by a taxi driver and the victim ran away, said prosecutor Dan Lee.

The woman called police as she fled towards her sister-in-law’s house nearby, but Booth caught up with her near Victoria Road, grabbed her hair and pushed her to the ground.

She then picked up the victim’s phone and “hit it repeatedly on the floor” before slamming the victim’s head against the ground.

The attack only stopped when the victim’s sister-in-law appeared.

The victim suffered cuts to her lip, a scratch to her head and face and a clump of her hair was pulled out.

Mr Lee said: “The victim believed she was going to be killed.”

Booth, of Hawthorn Walk, Eastfield, was subsequently arrested and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging the victim’s phone.

She admitted both offences.

Earlier that same night, she attacked the victim’s daughter at the bar in Roscoe Street.

Mr Lee said Booth had been at the party, but it wasn’t certain whether she had been invited or not.

She turned up “drunk and aggressive” to the extent that she was eventually ejected from the bar.

She was eventually let back in, whereupon she walked up the victim’s daughter, called her a deeply offensive name and “asked her to come out for a fight”.

The named woman declined and went looking for her mother, at which point Booth grabbed and pulled at her hair.

Mr Lee said the woman had a small amount of her hair pulled out “but not enough to cause a bald patch”.

Booth was charged with assault by beating in relation to this attack which she also admitted.

She appeared for sentence yesterday (Tuesday, July 16) with her liberty in the balance.

In a statement read out by the prosecution, the victim said the unprovoked attack left her “shocked and shaking in fear” and she had “feared for my life”.

She said Booth “kept banging my head off the road while pulling my hair after pushing me to the ground”.

She added: “After the assaults I couldn’t sleep due to nightmares which I still have.”

She had to take time off work, was afraid to leave her home and had been put on medication to help with anxiety.

She said she was now too afraid to go out on her own and was receiving counselling to “restore my confidence, to get back to the happy-go-lucky person I used to be”.

She said Booth’s actions were “vicious and terrifying”.

Booth had five previous convictions for offences including ABH and battery.

Defence barrister Nick Peacock said that Booth, a single mother, had lost her job as a carer due to the “unsavoury” street attack.

“(Her employers) sacked her when they found out because they felt betrayed by her getting involved (in violence) again when she promised them she wasn’t going to do any more,” he added.

Judge Sean Morris said he would spare Booth jail because she had caring responsibilities as a mother.

However, he said he would “lock (her) up” in her own home by way of a doorstep curfew.

He said that Booth had behaved “like a thug” and told her: “You are a mother. You shouldn’t be behaving like a yob in the streets.

“You are a disgrace (but) I’m not going to waste public money locking you up in prison. I’m going to lock you up in your own house.”

Booth was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence with a five-month curfew banning her from leaving her home between 7pm and 6am daily.

She was also ordered to wear an alcohol-abstinence tag for 90 days and pay a victim surcharge.