A mum hit a man on the head with a riding crop after they got into a row over the use of a bridle path. Leanne Wright, 44, was riding her horse with her 10-year-old daughter when she went to use a bridle path on the Back O’ Th’ Hill farm in Tameside on May 24 last year.
An argument followed with the landowner. Wright called him a ‘f*****g horrible old b*****d’. The man told her she was trespassing and told her to go back.
Wright then got off her horse before ‘seeing red’, Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
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Wright punched the man in the face before hitting him on the top of his head with her riding crop. “You used what you had as a weapon to deliberately harm him,” judge Recorder Sandra Pope told her.
Her young daughter witnessed the assault and was crying, Megan Edwards, prosecuting, said. The man was taken to hospital and the wound had to be glued.
He said in a statement the assault left him in shock. He said he has not been sleeping well and is now anxious.
Wright has 10 previous convictions for 19 offences, including for violence and breach of a community order.
Her barrister Sacha Waxman said the incident was ‘unpleasant but short-lived’. “She explains to me that there is a background to the dispute, regarding the bridle path being accessible,” she added.
“That path can be used by those for the stables, and on that day in question, she and her daughter were peacefully walking along the path when they became involved in the culminating incident.”
She said Wright’s reaction as ‘wholly unacceptable’, though claimed the man was ‘aggressive’ and ‘shouting’ at her before she responded ‘with force’.
She added that Wright, who is currently not employed, no longer has the horse and was struggling with mental health issues at the time.
Sentencing, Recorder Pope said Wright’s presentence report indicated that she sought to ‘blame’ her victim, but did accept responsibility.
“You punched him and used a weapon to strike him,” she said. “Your 10-year-old daughter was present whilst this took place.”
Wright, of Stockport Road West, Bredbury, was handed a 22 month sentence, suspended for 18 months after pleading guilty to ABH. She was also ordered to complete 20 days of rehabilitation activity requirements, and pay £300 compensation to the man.
She is also banned from entering the land and must not go back to the farm by way of a restraining order.
