A drunken woman threatened to set her neighbours alight and then attacked a peacemaker with a knife, has been jailed for two years.
The woman named Gemma Wood, 38 had been attending a garden party to celebrate a neighbour’s new baby in November 2019 when she became very drunk within an hour of arriving.
Then, she left the gathering in Newton Heath and returned with a green canister filled with about a gallon of petrol.
She became abusive, rude and aggressive and splashed two male guests with petrol. She then returned to her home and came back a second time with a lit piece of paper and a lighter.
The men covered in petrol feared for their lives and then watched as Wood went home a third time, only to come back with a large kitchen knife.
Before her neighbours went inside and called the police, a friend of Wood then went to her home to calm her down, but was attacked by the defendant when she opened the door, the court heard.
Wood pressed the knife into the woman’s face, and the victim also cut her hand on the blade while trying to grab it from her. Wood also knocked her to the floor and punched her in the face.
When police arrived at the property, Wood told them the woman was dead, but in reality, she had only suffered cuts and bruises during the attack.
From the investigation, it’s revealed that Wood had an ‘extremely traumatic upbringing’. She was raising her autistic son, who is now in the care of his grandmother.
In past, she was sent to jail for 30 months for affray in 2002, and breached a suspended sentence in 2015.
