A mum of two was beaten on her doorstep while her children slept in bed after she asked some teenagers to stop climbing on her shed.
34-year-old Emma Mason-Lucas was left with bruising and cuts to her back, arms, legs, and shoulders after being attacked by the teenagers.
Emma explained she had noticed the teenagers as they were shining torches. The group were reportedly playing truth or dare, when Emma claims she spotted one of the group on her garden shed, which is attached to the side of her house. She shouted at them to get down.
In a formal complaint to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Emma explained what happened.
I’ve shouted at the kids to get down off the shed, the reply was f**k off I’m not getting down.
What am I meant to do about that? I can’t physically drag them down. They were playing truth or dare.
19-year-old Jamie Dainty was among the group, and Ms Mason-Lucas’ CCTV shows the man kicking and hammering on the woman’s door in Wigan, Manchester. When she opens the door, Dainty attacks the mum of two with a series of punches.
Emma added:
He is stood in the background listening. He then took matters into his own hands.
Emma’s mother, Brenda Fermandel, was also assaulted in the attack.
Emma described how Dainty punched her in the head several times, after which she couldn’t wash her hair for several days because her head was so sore.
She said he grabbed her neck, and if she had hit her car slightly differently she could have been seriously injured.
He’s also grabbed my neck and if I’d hit the spoiler of my car in a different place I could have died or been paralysed.
You can’t see the invisible injuries where he has punched my head several times.
I suffer from a trapped nerve now in between my shoulders and I’ve got a bad back.
Dainty ended up in court over the attack, and pleaded guilty to two cases of assault by beating. Wigan and Leigh Magistrates’ Court gave him a six-week curfew alongside a community order, and was told to pay £150 in compensation.
Emma has blasted the justice system after the 19-year-old walked free from court, and believes the attack was much more serious than the magistrates recognised. She issued the formal complaint in response to his sentence.
She added:
I just feel so let down and betrayed by the justice system
It’s disgusting he only got a curfew.
It’s not justice. I’ve got the CCTV footage and I feel the CPS should have been pushing for a more serious charge.
I’ve looked into appealing but I went to numerous solicitors and none of them help victims. I’ve been going round in circles.
He has got away with common assault. It could have gone wrong, he could have paralysed me or killed me.
The CPS defines assault by beating or battery as intentionally or recklessly using force against someone else. In comparison, assault occasioning actual bodily harm inflicts hurt which is ‘more than transient or trifling’.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.