THIS woman attacked other people with a gas ring, a metal bar and a knife during two shocking incidents, a court heard.

On her 21st birthday, Michelle Fining set about a man with learning difficulties as he walked home along Stockton Lane, York.

She hit Oliver Wright on the head with the handle of a trailer jack, after he had been mugged and kicked by her male companions in a drive-by robbery.

Three months later, she and some female friends subjected a 19-year-old woman to a humiliating ordeal of torment and imprisonment.

During it, Fining grabbed a gas ring off an oven, and hit victim Kerrie Bricklebank on the side of her face with it.

Then she pulled the teenager to the floor by her hair, and, as a 17-year-old girl held her down, cut off a large hunk of her hair with a knife.

Miss Bricklebank also had tomato ketchup and cooking oil rubbed into her hair, and was made to clean up the mess on the floor before managing to escape from the house in the early hours.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman told Fining: "You committed a dreadful act of bullying upon another girl".

Fining was on bail for splashing a woman with petrol in a road rage on a Strensall garage forecourt before she began her latest violence.

Judge Hoffman described the attack on Mr Wright as "pretty brutal". He jailed Fining for 30 months.

Nicholas Barker, Fining's barrister ,said: "She was a very immature, and frankly, out of control young woman."

But since being remanded in custody eight months ago, she had realised that she could not return to her drink-fuelled lifestyle, and had improved her meagre education.

From being unable to write, she had learned how to type a letter to the judge on a prison computer.

Judge Hoffman described her letter to him as "perfectly respectable".

"You are ashamed of your appalling behaviour," he said.

Fining, of Toby Court, Strensall, pleaded guilty to wounding Mr Wright on March 31, 2005, and causing actual bodily harm to Miss Bricklebank in July, 2005. She was put on probation for 18 months and ordered to do 100 hours' community punishment for the road rage incident which happened only weeks before the attack the 19-year-old Leeds woman.

Fining's trail of violence

March 31, 2005 - Fining's 21st birthday

Fining yells at Terence Freel, 20, of Lilbourne Drive, Clifton, to stop the van she, he and Dean Barker, 22, of Wigginton Road are travelling in.

She has seen Mr Wright, whom she believes is responsible for an earlier incident that night. The men search Mr Wright and take his wallet, but miss his mobile phone.

They kick and punch him. Then she attacks him. After the gang leave, Mr Wright phones police who stop the van nearby. All three attackers charged with robbery. Prosecution later drops the charge against her through lack of evidence.

June 2005

Freel and Barker jailed for four years each after pleading guilty at York Crown Court.

York magistrates give Fining community punishment and probation for road rage incident.

July 11, 2005

Fining, the 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, and Belinda Love, 39, whose address cannot be given for legal reasons, subject Miss Bricklebank to torment. The 17-year-old accuses Miss Bricklebank of being a "grasser". All three arrested at the scene the next day.

July 12, 2005

Fining summonsed for grievous bodily harm (GBH) on Mr Wright after new forensic evidence links her to the mugging.

July 22, 2005

Fining remanded in custody.

November 2005

Fining says she will admit GBH charge.

December 2005

Fining pleads guilty to actual bodily harm on Miss Bricklebank at the start of the trial of the 17-year-old and Love. Both co-accused convicted of false imprisonment and assault charges. The teenager gets a six-month detention and training order on top of the 18 months' she is already serving for another offence. Love gets a nine-month suspended sentence.

March 2006

Judge Paul Hoffman jailed Fining for 30 months.

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, March 23, 2006