A woman was punched to the floor and then kicked in the head after an argument outside a town centre pub.

Anna Sewell was leaving The Warehouse bar, on Burrowgate in Penrith, shortly after 12am on October 26 last year when an argument broke out.

Insults were hurled by both Mrs Sewell and Siobhan Graham, who the court heard didn’t see eye-to-eye at school.

Graham, 34, then punched Mrs Sewell to the left eye which knocked her to the ground. As onlookers pulled back Graham, she kicked the victim in the head.

“The next thing I remember was being pulled up by someone,” said Diane Jackson, reading a statement on behalf of the victim.

A friend then guided her to a nearby taxi rank.

“I was such a state that people let me jump the queue,” continued the statement.

“I got in and I was crying and in a lot of pain.”

Mrs Jackson described the attack as a “repeated assault” and said Graham, of Pategill Park in Penrith, had no previous convictions.

Steven Marsh, defending, said his client was “a single parent with two children aged 10 and 16” and that “drink was involved on both parts”.

“She doesn’t normally drink, she doesn’t go out very often on social occasions, but she did as it was the birthday of one of her party,” he told the court. “It is accepted by both parties that it was a chance meeting and that they knew each other and hadn’t got on. Mrs Sewell was walking away when the defendant shouted abuse.

“The defendant says she was subjected to abuse. My client goes back into the pub and the victim comes after her and gets hold of her.”

Mr Marsh said his client rejected the prosecution claim that it was a “repeated assault”.

“Mrs Sewell had hold of her throat and she responded by punching her. Mrs Sewell falls over and there is the kick. The defendant is restrained so it isn’t full force, it is the swing of a leg towards the victim.” Mr Marsh said the injuries suffered were “very minor”.

District Judge John Temperley told the defendant: “You are a mum of two children, 10 and 16. I don’t know what you are doing in the dock at this stage of your life.”

She was given an eight-week curfew, was told to pay £85 in costs, £200 in compensation and a £90 victim surcharge.