Natalie Baker walked free from court (Picture: Cavendish)

A judge allowed a woman who glassed a teacher in the face in an unprovoked attack to walk from court after describing her as a ‘decent and respectable member of society’.

Sandra Ferns, 52, was left with a Y shaped cut to her face that needed 12 stitches after being attacked by Nicola Baker.

Baker was given a suspended sentence despite leaving the art and design teacher self-conscious about her injury.

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Miss Ferns, a mother of two, told her parents she had got the injury in an accident and now thinks twice about joining colleagues and pupils on school trips.


Prosecutor Miss Simone Flynn, said: ‘Miss Ferns heard some abuse from Natalie Baker who then grabbed hold of her arm and pushed her backwards. The defendant, holding a pint glass, standing approximately six feet away from the complainant then threw the glass in her face.



‘The glass didn’t shatter but the injuries sustained are a deep laceration to the bridge of the nose. There was someone trying to tell her to calm down but she had the pint glass in her hand all the time. It didn’t smash on impact, it was the force of the blow that cut her.’

Baker was given a 12 month prison sentence suspended for two years after she admitted causing grievous bodily harm at the Blue Bell Hotel in Moston, Greater Manchester, last July.

Baker was given a suspended prison sentence instead (Picture: Cavendish)

After hearing that she was in remission from cervical cancer, Baker was also spared from paying compensation to her victim.

Baker cried as Judge Martin Rudland told her: ‘You aren’t someone who has very high criminal tendencies.

‘You have been through a rough three years on any view and the condition you have suffered from is always to a degree uncertain.

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‘You were prescribed appropriate medication which, combined with alcohol, can lessen inhibitions and you responded in an over the top way.

‘In that split second you threw a pint glass at Miss Ferns and it struck her in the face. She is conscious of the scar. Scars do of course fade and so does a response to an event like this but at the moment she is feeling pretty raw about it and that’s understandable.

‘But it’s quite clear you are a decent and respectable member of society. You present a low risk of re-offending and I don’t doubt you will be able to put this behind you and won’t be offending again.

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‘There will be no compensation, it may be rubbing salt in the wounds if I was to impose a modest amount’.

Following the sentencing, Miss Ferns said: ‘I knew she’d get away with it – although I’m very annoyed that she did. It was absolutely disgusting what she did to me. My parents saw the stitches in my face but I just said I had an accident.

‘I had a festival so I had to go with glasses on to cover my cut. It was disgusting, my face was a mess. My eldest son said to me that she won’t go to jail. I’m just glad I wasn’t there to see it – I’m just so mad – it’s absolutely ludicrous she walked free.’

Baker was also ordered to be electronically tagged and will have to abide by a four month curfew between 9pm and 7am. She will also pay £140 statutory victim surcharge.