29 January 2024 , 10:19
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A beautician throttled her former friend in her half-a-million-pound house after mistakenly believing child abuse rumours, a court heard.
Natalie Shelley initially called the police in the unfounded belief that her neighbour and once friend Celine Woodfield was involved in child abuse allegations together with her former partner. She was told an officer would look into the case but was too impatient to wait, so burst into the four-bed house in Hartford, near Northwich in Cheshire, the MailOnline has reported.
Shelley choked Woodfield until she could barely breathe, grabbed her hair and "yanked" her head up and down before being pulled away by a third person. Woodfield luckily left the incident uninjured but was so traumatised that she sold up. No charges have been brought against her or her unnamed former partner about the alleged abuse and there is no suggestion she was ever under investigation.
But Shelley's actions led to a 12-month prison sentence, along with 200 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. She was also banned from contacting Ms Woodfield for ten years under the terms of a restraining order. The beautician who runs a cosmetics business which offers nail and eyelash treatments and tattoo treatments for cancer sufferers admitted assault and non-fatal strangulation. Her not-guilty plea to a charge of using violence to secure entry to a premises was accepted.
Jayne Morris, prosecuting at Chester Crown Court said until the incident the women had enjoyed a very close relationship. Woodfield said she went to the door after hearing a knock and was greeted by Shelley with "a crazy look on her face pushing her way in and shouting: 'Rape!'" Morris said: "Ms Woodfield thought if she spoke to the defendant she might calm her down, but instead the defendant pushed her into the kitchen and grabbed her neck with both hands. She squeezed tightly and pushed her back towards the kitchen worktop near the sink. The defendant was shouting at her continuously and grabbed her throat for about 30 seconds."
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In her victim impact statement, Ms Woodfield said: "To have somebody...seriously assault me and strangle me, has been huge, both emotionally and financially. After the incident, I no longer felt like my home was safe, especially given that Natalie lived just a few houses away from me."
She said she eventually felt she had no option but to sell up and move "in the hope that I could rediscover the sense of safety and privacy that any person should expect when they are in their own home." In mitigation, Gareth Roberts said Shelley was profoundly ashamed and embarrassed by her actions. He said she had never "been in trouble before in her life." He called her actions "extremely unwise and stupid" and that she "lost all grip of reality." Sentencing her, Judge Simon Berkson said the attack was "nasty and determined" but out of character.