A mother has said she ‘felt sick’ after being forced to watch CCTV footage of herself 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. Footage of the fight was played to the court in which she was seen repeatedly hitting her victim in the face with her high-heeled shoes following an argument in the street.
The carer cried and said: “I feel sick to be honest. As a mother, it’s not nice to watch this.” When later shown photos of her victim’s injuries, she said: “It’s horrific, especially that photo. Please I don’t want to look at that photo again.”
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Brown said he had ‘no recollection of the attack’ and ‘only went to help his sister’. A judge jailed him, saying the circumstances of the case ‘showed how many lives drunken violence can ruin’.
Liverpool Crown Court yesterday (August 28) heard that the complainant, Sylwia Lukowska, was in the city centre with her friend Dominic Bennett shortly before 5.30am on March 13, 2022, when the latter began urinating on the shutters outside a building in Fleet Street. Brown, of Grey Street in Bootle, had been drinking with her sister and two men.
The defendant’s sister was said to have shouted ‘f**k off’ when she saw Mr Bennett comforting her. Prosecutor Michael O’Brien described how this sparked a scuffle which led to the sister and the assault victim struggling on the ground.
Brown then tried to hit Ms Lukowksa, who was lying ‘face down’ in her orange stilettos, but hit Mr Bennett instead. The 27-year-old then went on to hit the married mother over the head with her high heels.
Ms Lukowska ‘immediately closed her eye and stopped moving’ at this stage. Brown’s high-heeled shoes ‘went flying off’ during this first attack, but she retrieved one of her shoes and continued the attack before being restrained by Mr Bennett and a member of the public.
The injured woman was meanwhile ‘taken to safety’ and when officers arrived at the scene they found the 43-year-old ‘barely responsive’. While being transported 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 deployed to the location and the defendant being arrested. During questioning at St Anne Street Police Station, he told officers he had consumed ‘four doubles, a vape and four vodkas’ and had smoked cannabis earlier in the day.
Ms Lukowska suffered a fracture to her right eye socket during the incident, with one of the blows puncturing her eyelid, and spent three days in hospital. ‘The vision in her right eye is never expected to recover’ and she has not been able to return to work since.
Brown, who underwent surgery to improve the appearance of his injuries in May last year, is currently awaiting further cosmetic surgery. Brown has no previous convictions.
Defence barrister Olivia Beesley told the court: “This is a very sad, very sad crime. It’s sad for the victim, it’s sad for the victim’s family and it’s also sad for Ms Brown and her family.”
“This was completely out of character for Ms Brown, a young, hard-working and generally kind, thoughtful individual who was the mother of a 10-year-old girl. This is in sharp contrast to the lifestyle she had lived up until that day in 2022.
“She comes from a stable and secure background. Despite having her daughter at a young age, she completed her GCSEs and has always focused on her career goals, working as a community care worker for the last six years.
“Not only has she been in this role for six years while raising her daughter, she has also been active in volunteering at a local mental health support café. Her manager described how kind and compassionate she is in this role, doing everything she can to care for people.
“He is generous and has an urge to look after others, which of course makes his behaviour that evening all the more shocking. He was drunk and perhaps that caused a decline in his maturity and judgement at the time.
“While Mrs Brown has the support of her mother to care for her child, this will have a real impact on her daughter.”
‘From any perspective, the circumstances of this case are completely tragic’
Brown admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Jailed for five years and four months, he tearfully nodded and then said ‘thank you’, while supporters in the public gallery told him ‘I love you’ as he was led to the cells.
Sentencing, Judge Andrew Menary KC, Honorary Registrar of Liverpool, said: “It is clear that everyone had been drinking and you were clearly under the influence of alcohol. At one point, Mr Bennett was relieving himself in front of a shop window.
“His actions were seen by your sister and she appears to have been disturbed by his actions. This led to some sort of disagreement between your sister and the victim, resulting in them both fighting, with her pulling his hair.
“They both fell to the ground. There’s no indication that your brother was in any worse condition from this fight. He was on top of Ms Lukowska most of the time.
“This was all very degrading behaviour but unfortunately this is typical behaviour after a night out in the city centre. Men were trying to separate people and it had to end that way.
“But for no good reason, you used your shoes to repeatedly assault Ms Lukowska, who was now lying on the ground. I have seen CCTV footage which clearly shows your determination to hit her in the face with the heel of your shoe, despite being pushed and pulled by one or more men.
“On two separate occasions you attacked your victim and struck her several times in the face with the heel of your shoe. These were clearly targeted blows to the face with a shoe that you held in a position to cause maximum harm.
“One blow injured Ms Lukoswka’s right eyelid, fracturing her eye socket and permanently impairing the function of her right eyelid. More importantly, the eye itself was injured, as a result of which she is now completely and permanently blind in one eye.
“Despite immediate medical attention, little can now be done to improve this outcome. He has been unable to work since the incident and the long-term effects on him and his family are likely to be profound.
“By any perspective, the circumstances of this case are utterly tragic – particularly for Ms. Lukowska, but also for you. The circumstances show how drunken violence, sparked by silly arguments or perceived slights after a good night’s work, can ruin, damage or destroy many lives in many ways.
“I have seen references in your name which say that you are, in all other circumstances and in normal circumstances, a very well-behaved and responsible person. You have a 10-year-old daughter and have been gainfully employed in a community care agency throughout your adult life. You have also worked in a charity café.
“All of this suggests that this behaviour was completely out of character. I accept that you now deeply regret what you did, but you – like everyone else who has dealt with this case – accept that the circumstances were so serious that a prison sentence of some length was required, designed to punish the harm you deliberately caused that night.”
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