A DRUNKEN quantity surveyor headbutted another woman in a trendy nightclub - days after posing for a photoshoot about binge-drinking professional women.

Mum-of-two Sharon Kennedy, 28, left her young victim covered in blood on the dancefloor of Moho Live and carried on dancing as though nothing had happened, a court heard.

Days earlier, Kennedy posed for photographs showing her preparing to down a shot of sambuca for a newspaper feature.

Kennedy was given a suspended sentence when she admitted the assault at Manchester magistrates' court - but the judge said she had only been spared jail because of the impact on her children.

She appeared before magistrates on the same day two female nurses were convicted of drink-driving - prompting concerns about the rise of alcohol-fuelled offences involving professional women.


“The number of alcohol-fuelled cases coming before me is getting beyond my comprehension."
District Judge Alan Berg

Traumatised

One of Manchester’s top judges spoke out about the amount of women appearing in the court on drink-related offences.

District Judge Alan Berg – who did not sentence Kennedy but has overseen a string of similar cases in his court – said: “The number of alcohol-fuelled cases coming before me is getting beyond my comprehension.

"You probably watch the same TV programmes as me of young women who lose all control of their senses and behave in a horribly drunken and drugged manner. They are like wild animals – and I am fed up with it.”

Kennedy, of Lord Street, Middleton, headbutted 22-year-old Hollie Capewell in the Northern Quarter club.

Gareth Hughes, prosecuting, said prior to the butt, Kennedy, who was drunk, had punched Miss Capewell several times about the head and face.

Miss Capewell suffered a swollen nose and two black eyes, which took weeks to heal. She said the attack, in May, left her feeling traumatised. In a statement read out in court she said: “It was totally unprovoked – I feel I have lost two months of my life."

Kennedy, who has a previous conviction for benefit fraud, was sentenced to a 12-week suspended jail term.

Madness

She was ordered to undertake 200 hours unpaid work and pay £500 compensation to Miss Capewell. District Judge Diana Baker told her she would have gone to jail but for her children.

Gavin Clarke, defending, said Kennedy was at a loss to explain her behaviour. He said: “It was a moment of madness”.

In the same court on the same day, nurses Eleanor Riley and Helen Longden admitted drink-driving. Riley, 22, of Hadfield Close, Victoria Park, drank two pints and crashed her car in the city centre. She wept in court as she was fined £235 with £85 costs and banned from driving for 16 months.

Longden, a psychiatrist nurse, was arrested twice in six days for driving her father’s mobility car while over the limit.

On one occasion, she had ploughed into the back of another car in Longsight.

Longden, 41, of Chiltern Drive, Swinton, was given a five-month jail sentence suspended for a year and banned from off the road for four years.

District Judge Wendy Lloyd told her: “You have disgraced yourself.”