WHEN a woman saw a teenage girl she knew being detained by a security guard she went and got involved only to find herself facing a charge of assault.

Sarah Barnes of Watercrook Mews, Westlea, pleaded guilty to assaulting the Sainsbury’s Bridgemead security guard on April 19 of this year when she came before magistrates sitting in Swindon on Wednesday.

She also faced a separate charge dating from April 6 when she was seen leaving The Range on Fleming Way with an inflatable bed having not paid for it. She has a record of 26 theft offences between 1991 and 2015.

Crown prosecutor Pauline Lambert told the magistrates that 37-year-old Barnes had been with two other women in The Range when she and one of the other woman had both decided to leave without paying for the airbeds they had selected. They were followed outside by doorstaff who retrieved the stolen items and the women left the scene.

Almost a fortnight later Barnes had been shopping in Sainsbury’s at Bridgemead when she saw a security guard trying to detain her friend’s 14-year-old daughter who had just left the store with a trolley-load of electrical items.

“He was holding the other female when Barnes trued to get in between them. He says she threw a punch at him which hits him on his chest and chin. She then fell to the floor. She was driven away by somebody else.”

Defending her, Emma Thacker told the court that the offences had been committed while Barnes was on a community order, which she had complied well with. “Unfortunately she had lost her brother very soon before these incidents,” she said. “He had cancer and had been suffering for a significant period. She was struggling emotionally. She suffers from severe depression and feels that this unfortunately caused her depression to worsen – that is the only explanation she can give for committing these rather silly offences.”

She added that Barnes denied punching the security guard but accepted pushing him before he pushed her back which led to her falling over.

Sentencing her, chairman of the bench Simon Wolfensohn told Barnes that her compliance with the community order was to her credit. He imposed a new community order for a period of six month during which she must complete 10 rehabilitation activity days. She must also pay the security guard £50 compensation and a victim surcharge of £85, although she was not ordered to pay court costs due to her means.