Mum admits lashing out at ‘gossip’

A MUM punched a woman in the face after hearing she had been gossiping about her at a party.

Tammy Woodward left Natasha McPhillips with a suspected broken nose after drunkenly visiting her house at 4am to demand answers.

When she got a hostile reaction, Woodward punched Ms McPhillips in the face then kicked her.

Jim Robertson, prosecuting, told Livingston Sheriff Court that the victim had suffered severe swelling, a black eye and bruising.

Woodward, 33, of Whitburn, West Lothian, pleaded guilty to assault to injury, but the Crown accepted her denial that the attack on October 29, 2011 involved repeated kicks to the head to the danger of Ms McPhillips’ life.

Woodward was placed on a community payback order with 80 hours of unpaid work.

Sheriff Donald Muirhead told her: “It was a very foolish thing to do to go to this woman’s house and ask her why she’d been saying nasty things about you.

“It was very likely that was going to lead to some kind of fisticuffs.”