A YOUNG mother was jailed for 27 months last week after going around to a love rival’s home and attacking a woman with a metal bar.

Fiona Harmer, 24, of Holyrood Crescent, St Albans, struck the woman over the head in front of her ex boyfriend, his new partner and a number of young children.

She appeared at St Albans Crown Court for sentencing after pleading guilty to one offence of aggravated burglary.

Kevin West, prosecuting, told the court how Harmer had been in a relationship with Mark Hardey but discovered he was seeing another woman called Amanda Dervish.

On August 20 last year Harmer went to Miss Dervish’s home in Maynard Drive, St Albans. Mr Hardey was there at the time with another woman, Remie Brown, plus a number of young children.

Harmer knocked at the door but before doing so had picked up a metal bar she found in the garden.

The prosecutor said it was not Miss Dervish who came to the door but Remie Brown, who was immediately struck over the head by Harmer with the bar. The victim screamed out and a cut to her head was spurting blood. Mr Hardey managed to disarm Harmer and get her out of the house before police arrived and she was arrested.

Fedon Kazantzis, defending, said the attack with the bar was not planned and she had found the bar on her arrival at the house and picked it up.

Judge Andrew Bright was told Harmer had a previous conviction for aggravated burglary after she slipped into the staff area at the Waterend Barn armed with a knife and went through a handbag and tried to steal bottles of alcohol.

Passing sentence, the judge told her she had already chalked up 20 previous convictions involving a total of 54 offences and told her, “You are turning into something of a menace.”

Confirming that the offence she was before the court for crossed the custody threshold by a long way, he jailed her for 27 months.

He also made her the subject of a restraining order not to have any contact with Amanda Dervish or Mr Hardey.