Alcoholic jailed after assaulting woman twice and attempting to gouge her eyes out

An alcoholic who attempted to gouge another woman’s eyes out twice has been jailed.Kirsty Mills, 35, of Wisbech Road in Lynn, appeared at the town’s magistrates’ court on Thursday via a video link from HMP Peterborough – where she had been detained for 16 days.In a previous hearing, she had pleaded guilty to two counts of theft, two counts of assaulting an emergency worker and one count of assaulting a person causing actual bodily harm.

On Thursday, Mills also admitted three further offences, including another shop theft, an assault and breaching an order set out by the probation service.Prosecutor Colette Harper explained that the first offence took place on December 8 last year, when police were called to the Southgates Medical Centre in Lynn. It was there where Mills was seen kicking and punching a woman, before attempting to gouge her eyes out.The victim’s eyes were red and she had visible cuts and bruises after the incident, and also had pain in her ribs.On February 12, Mills entered One Beyond on Lynn’s Broad Street and took £10 worth of beauty products and left without paying for them.She committed a similar offence exactly a week later, stealing beauty products from B&M and Poundland in Lynn, totalling to the value of £19. On March 17, Mills was drinking outside of the Millfleet off-licence in Lynn with the woman she had previously assaulted.Everything was fine for around 30 minutes until Mills suddenly “turned” and grabbed the victim, refusing to let go. The victim managed to get away and ran into the off-licence. Mills followed her and struck the victim with a bottle of wine.She was acting aggressively and attempted to gouge the woman’s eyes out again. The police were called, and when officers arrived at the scene to arrest Mills, she kicked one of them on the stomach.More officers arrived to help control Mills, but she continued to lash out and shout – and caused bruising to another officer’s arm. A statement was read out in court from the owner of the Millfleet off-licence, who said that while the incident took place in his store, £50 worth of goods were damaged. He had to shut the shop for around an hour and turn customers away. From this, he estimated that around £100 was lost.The statement added that the incident “made customers think about the safety of the store” and that it also made staff feel concerned.Mills had committed a total of 135 previous offences.By committing her latest crimes, Mills breached a post-sentence supervision order.Probation officer Lewis Spicer told the court that Mills had missed many of her supervision appointments after she was released from prison in November last year.In mitigation, Charlotte Winchester explained that Mills is an alcoholic.On the woman Mills assaulted, Ms Winchester said: “You would think there would be history between the women, but she said there is no relationship at all.“They are both drinkers in the Lynn community.”However, the solicitor explained that Mills had undertaken a detox since being in prison and “hopes to reduce her drinking” in the future – as well as address her mental health issues with a GP upon being released.“She is ashamed of her behaviour. Clearly this was an unpleasant incident and she is sorry for that,” Ms Winchester added.Magistrates handed Mills 32 weeks in custody.Twenty-four of these weeks were as a punishment for assaulting the woman, and eight weeks were for assaulting the police officers.She will also pay a victim surcharge of £187.