Matlock glass attack horror

Dan Hooton was out on a works night out in Monk Bar, Matlock, on December 14 last year when his girlfriend Beth Richardson was approached by Zoe Handley, of Victoria Hall Gardens, Matlock.

Mr Hooton, who lives in Matlock, said: “We were having a really good time.

“I’d never even seen Zoe before.”

According to prosecutor Becky Allsop at Chesterfield magistrates’ court, Handley, 21, squared up to Miss Richardson, pressing her head against her face, at which point Mr Hooton stepped in between them.

He said: “She poured a drink of lager on my head and she picked the glass back up and smashed it on top of my head.”

Mr Hooton, who turns 29 on Monday, was rushed to hospital for treatment of the wound.

He said: “It was down to the bone and it was one and a half inches long.”

The plumbing and heating engineer is now left with a scar above his left eye as a lasting reminder of the attack.

“You can still see it,” he said. “It’s going to be there for a long time.

“I play rugby so every week I run the risk of having a cut or a scar, but when someone’s done it to you it sits differently.”

Mr Hooton had to have a week off after the attack, and he is concerned about the amount it would have cost his boss.

He is now looking into compensation.

He said that despite it being made clear in a previous court report in the Matlock Mercury that he did not attack Handley, he still gets approached by people who think that he did, which is damaging to his reputation.

She pleaded guilty to causing malicious wounding and was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months at Derby Crown Court on Wednesday, March 18.

She was also ordered to pay court costs and a victim surcharge.

Mr Hooton said while he felt the sentence was a ‘slap on the wrists’ for Handley, he hoped it meant that was the end of it and she would learn from the experience.