A mother said she felt “sick” after being forced to watch CCTV footage of her drunkenly attacking a woman with her stilettos during a night out.
Ellie Brown left her victim permanently blind in one eye after the “horrific” attack in Liverpool city centre, the Liverpool Echo reports. She was shown footage of the altercation in court, which showed her repeatedly hitting her victim in the face with her high heels after a fight broke out in the street.
The caregiver cried and said, “I feel sick, honestly. As a mother, it’s not nice to see that.” When she was then shown photos of her victim’s injuries, she said, “It’s horrible, especially that photo. I’d rather not see that photo again.”
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Brown said she had “no memory of the attack” and “just went to help her sister”. A judge jailed her after saying the circumstances of the case “demonstrate how many lives can be ruined by drunken violence”.
Yesterday (28 August) Liverpool Crown Court heard how shortly before 5.30am on 13 March 2022, the complainant, Sylwia Lukowska, was in the city centre with her boyfriend Dominic Bennett when he began urinating on a set of shutters outside a property on Fleet Street. Brown, of Gray Street, Bootle, had been out drinking with her sister and two men at the time.
When he came across Mr Bennett as he was relieving himself, the defendant’s brother allegedly shouted ‘get your d*** away’. Michael O’Brien, prosecuting, described how this led to a scuffle which resulted in the sister and the victim of the attack fighting on the ground.
Brown then attempted to strike a ‘prone’ Ms Lukowksa with her orange stilettos, but instead struck Mr Bennett. The 27-year-old then proceeded to slash the married mother’s head with her high-heeled shoes.
Ms Lukowska ‘immediately covered her eye and stopped moving’ at this point. Brown’s high heels were ‘thrown through the air’ during this initial attack, but she then grabbed one of her shoes and resumed the attack before being restrained by Mr Bennett and a member of the public.
The injured woman, meanwhile, was ‘taken to safety’ and officers found the then 43-year-old ‘barely responsive’ when they arrived at the scene. As she was being taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Mr Bennett spotted Brown’s group as the ambulance passed the Tesco supermarket on Hanover Street.
This led to PCs being sent to the scene and the suspect being arrested. During questioning at St Anne Street police station she told officers she had consumed ‘four doubles, a steamboat and four vodkas’ and had smoked cannabis earlier in the day.
Ms Lukowska suffered a fractured right eye socket in the incident, with one of the blows piercing her eyelid, and remained in hospital for three days. She is ‘not expected to ever regain sight in her right eye’ and has not been able to return to work since.
After undergoing surgery to improve the appearance of her injuries in May last year, she is currently awaiting further cosmetic surgery. Brown has no previous convictions.
Olivia Beesley, defending, told the court: “This is a sad, sad offence. It’s sad for the victim, it’s sad for the victim’s family and it’s also sad for Mrs Brown and her family.
“This was completely out of character for Ms. Brown as a young, hardworking and generally kind, caring person who is the mother of a 10-year-old daughter. This is in stark contrast to the way she has lived her life up until that day in 2022.
“She comes from a stable, secure background. Despite having her daughter at a young age, she completed her GCSEs and has always been driven in her career goals, working as a community nurse for the past six years.
“Not only has she fulfilled that role for six years while raising her daughter, she has also taken an active role in volunteering at a local mental health cafe. Her manager has described how kind and caring she is in that role and how she goes out of her way to care for people.
“She is generous and has a drive to care for others, which of course makes her behaviour that night all the more shocking. She was drunk, and perhaps this contributed to her lack of maturity and judgement at the time.
“While Mrs Brown has the support of her mother to care for her child, it will of course still have a real impact on her daughter.”
“Whichever way you look at it, the circumstances of this case are nothing short of tragic”
Brown admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent. She nodded tearfully as she was jailed for five years and four months, before replying “thank you” as her supporters in the public gallery chanted “I love you” as she was led to her cells.
Passing sentence, Liverpool Magistrate Andrew Menary KC said: “It is clear that everyone had been drinking and you were clearly significantly under the influence of alcohol. At one point Mr Bennett was relieving himself against a shop front.
“His actions were witnessed by your sister, who apparently objected to what he was doing. This led to some sort of dispute between your sister and the victim, which resulted in them both engaging in some hair pulling motions.
“They both fell to the ground. There is no indication that your sister took the brunt of this fight. She was on top of Mrs. Lukowska for most of the time.
“This was all rather unsavory behaviour, but it is unfortunately typical of the behaviour you see after a night out in this city centre. The men were trying to disperse people, and that is how it should have ended.
“But without good reason you repeatedly used your shoes to attack a now lying Ms Lukowska on the ground. I have seen CCTV footage which clearly shows you determined to strike her in the face with the heel of your shoe, despite being pushed or pulled away by one or more men.
“On two separate occasions you attacked your victim, striking her multiple times in the face with the heel of your shoe. These were clearly targeted blows to the face with a shoe that you deliberately held in a position to cause the most damage.
“One blow caused an injury to Mrs. Lukoswka’s right eyelid, which broke her eye socket and permanently damaged the function of the right eyelid. Worse still, the eye itself was injured and as a result she is now completely and permanently blind in one eye.
“Despite urgent medical intervention, there is not much that can be done now to improve this outcome. She has been unable to work since the incident and the long-term effects on her and her family are likely to be significant.
“Whichever way you look at it, the circumstances of this case are utterly tragic – for Ms Lukowska in particular, but also for you. The circumstances serve to illustrate how so many lives, in so many ways, can be ruined, damaged or destroyed by drunken violence arising from silly arguments or perceived insults after a night out.
“I have seen references written on your behalf which set out the fact that you are, in all other circumstances and ordinarily, a perfectly well behaved and responsible person. You have a 10 year old daughter and have been employed all your adult life by a community care company. You have also worked in a charity pub.
“All of this shows that this behaviour was completely out of character for you. I accept that you now deeply regret what you did, but you also recognise – as does everyone considering this case – that the circumstances are simply so serious that there must be a lengthy prison sentence designed to punish you for the harm you deliberately caused that night.”
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