A woman launched a brutal attack on another female during a row on a petrol station forecourt.

Blackburn Magistrates' Court heard how during the attack the victim was punched repeatedly and her ankle was broken when the two women fell to the floor.

In a victim impact statement, she said the injury had caused her enormous mobility problems and her 10-month-old baby had learned to walk before she was back on her feet properly.

Molly Sweet, 24, of Hollin Bridge Street, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm without intent.

She was committed on bail to Preston Crown Court to be sentenced.

The court heard Sweet pleaded guilty on a basis.

She had been at the Lock Mill Service Station in Bolton Road, Blackburn, with two friends at about 11.30pm on July 8, 2023, when the aggrieved got out of a car and approached the serving hatch where the defendant was standing.

They got into a conversation and it became heated.

Sweet claimed the other woman made threats towards her, and accepted she had put her glasses and her mobile phone on the floor to prevent them from getting damaged.

She accepted she then assaulted the other woman by punching her repeatedly.

“At some point, we fell to the floor,” the basis of plea said.

“I didn’t do this deliberately, but as a result of the fall to the floor she suffered the injury to her ankle.”

In the victim impact statement, the aggrieved said the injury had incapacitated her for a long time and she felt she was unable to be a mum to her children, doing all the things she had done with them before.

On her son’s first birthday, she took him to buy a football and had a panic attack in the shop.

“I had to be collected from the shop and I sobbed all the way home,” she said.

“My physical abilities will never be the same as they were before the assault.”

She said she had previously been employed in a special needs school but was unable to do the job she loved because of ongoing mobility issues.