A WOMAN who beat another woman and pulled a clump of her hair out in a pre-arranged fight has been given a suspended prison sentence.

York Crown Court heard Hannah Janet Bryony Chambers, 28, had a baseball bat with her at the fight in Wigginton Road north of York on March 26 last year.

Michael Smith, prosecuting, said the incident had caused “significant harm” to the other woman and the violence was carried out in the sight of members of the public who were passing by.

“This was a pre-planned meeting where a weapon was taken and violence meted out,” he said.

At an earlier hearing, Mr Smith had said: “The victim was lucky not to be charged with an offence.”

“It was six of one and half a dozen of the other,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, had said at the earlier hearing when York Crown Court was sitting in Leeds.

He added that both women should have charged with unlawful violence.

The decision whether to charge someone with an offence or not is made by a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer and not by the barrister who represents it in court.

Chambers, 28, of Bempton House, Del Pyke, The Groves, York, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily to the other woman and having a baseball bat as an offensive weapon on Sutton Road, north of York.

She was given a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months on condition she does 20 days’ rehabilitation activities and 100 hours’ unpaid work.

It was her second suspended prison sentence.

“Although you are culpable, so was the other woman,” the judge said.

He declined to order Chambers to compensate the other woman for her injuries.

“People who arrange fights don’t get compensation,” he said at the sentencing hearing in York Crown Court.

Mr Smith said Chambers had caused injuries including pulling out “quite a significant amount of her hair”.

For Chambers, John Batchelor said she had mental health difficulties.

She also had issues in her personal life and was getting family and agency support.

“She is doing as well as she can in the circumstances,” he said.

The offence took place at a time when she had been at a low point in her life.