/ 29 June 2006

Stiletto-stabbed soldier wins compensation

A 31-year-old woman who wounded a British soldier with her stiletto heel after he tried to break up a row was ordered on Wednesday to pay him £170 in compensation.

Mark McCay (23) was taken to hospital with a bloody cut after he was hit on the head by Lisa Ashworth’s shoe in the early hours of July 1 2004.

Blandford Magistrates Court was told that McCay had been eating chips and a kebab outside a takeaway in Weymouth, south-west England, when he stepped in to separate Ashworth from an aggressive man — only to have her turn on him.

McCay felt a blow to the head as he walked away and he thought he had been hit by a bottle, the court heard. He saw blood on his clothes and he was taken by ambulance to hospital where his wound was glued.

Ashworth, a married mother of two who works in a canteen at an army base, and who recently separated from her husband, was arrested by police nearby. She was convicted of assault after pleading not guilty.

She had claimed that McCay was thrown out of a club for pinching her bottom, but judge Leonard Saunders ordered Ashworth to pay £150 compensation plus £20 for his taxi fare, plus a share of legal costs. — AFP