A woman jumped on a frail pensioner's back outside KFC in Milton Street, Nottingham, and hit him with his walking stick. Gemma Peat randomly attacked him on October 20 last year, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
After jumping on his back, she wrapped her arms around him, causing him to fall to the floor. He hit his head as he fell, then repteadly stamped on him.
Peat, of Larch Gardens, Bulwell, shouted and screamed at the stranger, who was in his seventies, during the shocking incident. It left him bruised to his face and with scratches to the top of his head.
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Afterwards, he complained of headaches and was confused why someone would do this to him. The incident impacted his mental health.
He often spends time thinking about what happened, the court heard on Wednesday (May 17). Peat pleaded guilty to assault, and shop theft from Heron Foods, Southchurch Drive, Clifton, on February 8 this year.
She stole a trolley of food worth £40 - saying she needed food to survive and needed to eat. Peat has more than 100 offences on her record and had been to prison for arson.
A psychiatric report linked her mental illness to the offence. The judge said: "Undoubtedly her personality disorder, fueled by alcohol and drugs, caused her to commit the offence, and it is aggravated by her many, many previous convictions of a similar kind".
Now medicated in custody and sober, 38-year-old Peat does not seek to excuse her behaviour through her upbringing and difficulties, said barrister Gregor Purcell, mitigating.
Judge Stuart Rafferty KC said for almost all her adult life she has been angry with somebody or something, not really knowing what it was. He said she jumped on the man, hit him with his walking stick and stamped on him.
But, due to her mental health difficulties and her pleas of guilty, he imposed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 20 rehabilitation activity days, and a drug rehabilitation requirement for nine months.
He ordered, through her GP, she be referred to and should make contact with a community health trust, so they can make sure she is medicated. She has to be drug tested and have regular reviews.
"I am satisfied that it was your mental illness that made you commit this offence, rather than you committing it voluntarily," said Judge Rafferty. "Had it not been so, you would have been going to prison for two-and-a-half years for this".
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