Pair sentenced for school fight retaliation

Leigh Coulson and Jack Quinn were sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court

A brawl erupted between two groups of adults in retaliation for a playground scrap between schoolboys, a court has heard.

Leigh Coulson went to another woman's house in Sunderland with a group of men after the women's teenage sons had a minor altercation at school, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Coulson, 35, admitted affray, along with her associate Jack Quinn, 29.

Both were given 18-month-long community orders.

Prosecutor Kevin Wardlaw said Coulson, of Gordon Terrace in Sunderland, was part of a convoy of two cars and four men that went to a woman's home in the Hylton area at about 16:00 GMT on 29 November.

He said there had been a "dispute" between the two women's teenage sons and there was ongoing "ill-feeling" between the families.

Child present

When the cars pulled up, the victim walked outside to confront Coulson and there was then a "short fight or scuffle between the two women", Mr Wardlaw said.

Two men came out of the woman's house, one armed with a bat, and there were "gestures and a stand off" between the two groups before the three men who had arrived with Quinn and Coulson "ran" at the home and a "fight ensued" while a small child was present, the court heard.

Quinn, who had driven one of the cars, jumped over a fence to chase after the woman as she fled into her garden, Mr Wardlaw said.

In the melee, the woman's car was damaged, although neither Quinn nor Coulson caused that, the court heard.

'Very bad idea'

In mitigation for the pair, Nicholas Lane said trouble had flared between the families after Coulson's long-term partner was jailed for 10 years, which had provoked an "element of targeting" against her.

He said it had "made life incredibly difficult" and caused "anxiety and stress" for Coulson, and the "minor incident between two teenage boys in the school play yard was the straw that broke the camel's back".

Mr Lane said Coulson "accepts with hindsight" it was a "very bad idea" to go and speak to the other mother, but she had "not intended or foreseen the incident would escalate in the way that it did".

He said Quinn, of Redmond Square in Southwick, went "out of concern" for Coulson but accepted there could be "no excuse for his behaviour for what was to follow".

Recorder Georgina Nolan warned the pair they could have been jailed but said due to the mitigating circumstances a community order would be appropriate.

Quinn, who also admitted driving without insurance or a licence, was also given six penalty points.