A PREGNANT York mother-of-three collapsed in a crown court dock as she was jailed for eight months for hitting a doorman with a bottle.

Leeds Crown Court heard that Tracey Samantha Jayne Bell, 31, cut Andrew Gibb on the back of his head as he was trying to separate her husband and another man during an argument at the Ikon and Diva nightclub.

"It was a sustained and repeated attack. Several blows were struck," said the honorary recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman.

"If young women engage in the same sort of outrageous and violent behaviour that men do, it seems to me that the same sentencing principles should apply. You have shown no remorse."

As he jailed her for eight months, Bell staggered backwards and was helped to a seat by a Group 4 dock officer.

"I feel faint," she said. Her barrister David Bradshaw said she had no convictions, but one caution for criminal damage.

Bell, of Chapelfields Road, Acomb, denied causing actual bodily harm to Mr Gibb and stood trial before Judge Hoffman at York Crown Court earlier this year.

"You fought the case tooth and nail. The jury convicted you on compelling evidence," he told her.

The judge said Mr Gibb was a young man whose duty had involved separating two "fractious" men - Bell's husband and another man - in the nightclub where he worked.

Bell was under the influence of alcohol when she attacked the doorman with a bottle.

Mr Bradshaw said: "She did not go out that evening looking for trouble. It came to her and she reacted. It was something that happened on the spur of the moment, very quickly, and she certainly regrets becoming involved."

Bell was a hard-working woman who looked after elderly people. She had three children and was expecting a fourth. Mr Bradshaw handed in references from a previous employer which spoke of her reliability and honesty. She had, the barrister said, expressed some remorse.

Updated: 11:37 Wednesday, October 16, 2002