Wakefield Trinity player jailed for sex attack and bodily harm

A WAKEFIELD Trinity Wildcats player who squeezed the breast of a complete stranger in a pub and then threw a heavy tumbler into her face after she slapped him has been jailed for two years.

Secretary Belinda Kelly, 26, suffered permanent scarring and damage to her left eye when Gregory Johnson grabbed the tumbler from her fiancee and threw it at her.

Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that the force of the blow knocked Johnson’s victim to the floor of the Yates Bar in Huddersfield leaving her in “agonising pain”.

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The attack took place in February just a few weeks before Mrs Kelly was due to marry and the blow resulted in stitches to her nose and eyelid.

She was later examined by a eye specialist after the incident and eventually underwent surgery to remove the damaged lens.

Although she had a contact lens fitted her vision remained hazy and the court heard that Mrs Kelly had faced the dilemma of whether to have further surgery which could result in a total loss of sight.

Mrs Kelly, who went ahead with her marriage plans, had decided not to have another operation so was now left with not only scarring to the bridge of her nose but also permanent damage to her eye. She waived her right to anonymity which is granted to victims of sexual assaults.

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Johnson, 21, of Newsome Road, Huddersfield, pleaded guilty at previous court hearings to sexually assaulting Mrs Kelly and causing her grievous bodily harm.

His barrister Phillip Tully said Johnson had expressed genuine remorse.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Mrs Kelly had been going to the ladies when Johnson grabbed her.

“Rightly that lady, and if I may say bravely and understandably, in her shock and anger slapped you and when that had no effect she slapped you again. And to pay her back for her impertinence...you took a glass tumbler, a heavy tumbler, from her fiancee no less, throwing the contents away and you threw that glass into her face with obvious and self-evident force.”

Johnson was given a concurrent three-month jail term for the sexual assault and he will also have to register as a sex offender for seven years.