A GRANDMOTHER who bit her neighbour's nose and pulled out her hair during a drunken attack has dodged prison.

Jean Collins faced a potential jail sentence of up to four years but walked free from court after a judge heard she was hit first.

The 55-year-old and her next-door neighbour gave differing accounts of what happened at her home in Ensign Court, Hartlepool, last October.

The victim said the assault was unprovoked, while Collins said her friend started the violence after they drank together.

She claimed her neighbour punched her, grabbed her hair, dragged her to the floor and said she would "chew your face off".

She admitted getting on top of the victim, punching her in the face, grabbing her hair, biting her nose and hand and pulling out an earring.

The victim – who feared she would not get out of Collins' home alive – insisted she was grabbed, dragged to the floor, had her hair pulled out and was bitten on the left ear, nose and hand.

She said she found her neighbour drunk and angry when she was invited to to her home, and prosecutor Emma Atkinson told Teesside Crown Court that Collins "seemed to vent her frustrations" on her.

Judge Peter Armstrong saw photographs of her injuries, including a bald patch to her head with "a lot of hair missing", bruising and swelling to her left eye, cuts to her nose and left ear and a bruised jaw.

Collins, now of Speeding Drive, Hartlepool, admitted wounding, and got a 20-month suspended jail term with 120 hours' unpaid work.

Judge Armstrong ordered her to pay £750 compensation and gave her a two-year restraining order banning her from approaching her former neighbour or going to her home.

Martin Scarborough, mitigating, said Collins acted out of character as she lost her temper and went "well over the top" in an isolated incident.

He said: "She is ashamed and remorseful for what she's done. We would say there was some provocation.

"Whatever the background and however it started, she makes it clear her neighbour is the victim and didn't deserve to be assaulted in the way she was."

Judge Armstrong told Collins: "This was a repeated and sustained assault. The ferocity of it must have been terrifying. The use of teeth as a weapon is always serious, and the sort of injuries that can result from biting can be devastating."