Victim denies homophobia prompted pizza restaurant attack
The victim of an assault denied a lawyer’s suggestion she inflamed the incident by making homophobic comments to her attacker, as her assailant was jailed yesterday.
The Burton Mail reports that Danielle Bishop, 29, fractured her victim’s cheekbone and deviated her septum in the attack outside a pizza restaurant in Burton.
She has been jailed for three years and four months following the attack, which her lawyer suggested was brought on by homophobic comments made by the victim.
Natalie Matthews, a student, required surgery to correct a breathing problem brought on by the December assault.
But she denied Bishop’s lawyer’s suggestion she had prompted the attack with homophobic rhetoric.
Stafford Crown Court saw footage of the assault on a pavement outside the Spice Hut pizza restaurant in which Bishop kicked Ms Matthews in the face.
Bishop accepted the charge.
Ms Matthews told the court: “I don’t remember anything else. I just remember hitting a car and being hit on the back of the head.
“I was on the floor quite a while, I was unconscious.”
She denied the suggestion homophobia had brought on the incident. She said an argument had been had by her partner and Bishop’s partner in the pizza restaurant, though she could not remember further details of what she had done inside.
Ms Matthew described an accusation of homophobia as “absolute rubbish”.
She added: “I am a student and I am not prejudiced in any way.”
