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A woman jailed for a racially-motivated assault on a shopkeeper has lost an appeal against her sentence.<\/p>\n
Charlene Coyle, 40 of Mimosa Court in Londonderry, was sentenced to five months in prison at the city’s magistrate’s court earlier this year following the assault in 2024.<\/p>\n
At Londonderry’s County Court on Monday Judge Neil Rafferty dismissed her appeal.<\/p>\n
The judge described the original sentence as “entirely appropriate”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A prosecuting barrister told the judge Coyle had entered the shop on the city’s Strand Road at 03:00 BST on 31 March 2024 and threw a large quantity of stock onto the floor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“She entered the shop in an aggressive manner and punched the shopkeeper three times in the face during which she uttered several racist comments”, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
“When arrested and when in custody she spat in the eye of the police officer”, she added.<\/p>\n
A defence barrister said since her release Coyle, who has eighteen previous convictions, had complied with bail conditions and had engaged with professional addiction counsellors.<\/p>\n
The bail conditions, she added, provided Coyle with a helpful structured aspect to her lifestyle.<\/p>\n
Dismissing the appeal, Judge Rafferty said Coyle had been convicted of a “racially motivated assault on a hard working shopkeeper who was simply trying to earn a living”<\/p>\n
The judge also referred to the incident in which she spat into the eye of a police officer.<\/p>\n
“Both the shopkeeper in his premises and the police officer were providing necessary services to the community,” the judge said.<\/p>\n
The five-month sentence also included a four-month concurrent sentence when Coyle was convicted of threatening to kill a neighbour in August 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n