A WOMAN was sentenced to 150 hours' community service after attacking an Oxford United footballer she had previously accused of rape.

Claire Patton smashed a glass bottle over Rufus Brevett's head in a pub on February 22 last year.

Six months before the attack she had accused the 37-year-old of rape, but no charges were ever brought against the former West Ham and Fulham defender. During the two-day trial in February at Plymouth Crown Court, Devon, Brevett said that Patton, 21, and her friends had verbally abused him whenever they had seen him since the accusations.

Patton, of Aylesbury Crescent, Plymouth, was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and her sentence was adjourned until this week for reports.

Judge Paul Darlow said: "You used a bottle as a weapon and threw it quite deliberately at this complainant. He has been left with a scar above his eye, it is likely he will be scarred for life. It was a serious incident of nightclub violence."

Patton was also ordered to pay £400 towards the prosecution's costs.

During the trial, the court head that the bottle struck Brevett while he was talking to a friend of Patton's in the Australian theme pub Walkabout in Plymouth, causing a 1-inch gash in his forehead.