AN 18-year-old Darwen woman launched a vicious attack on a neighbour after being invited into her flat late at night, a court was told.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Michelle Anna Grist grabbed her neighbour, Carol Yewdale, by her ponytail and dragged her off a settee before kicking her about the stomach and sides.

She then allegedly leaned over and started punching and scratching her victim about the face before being dragged away by a member of staff at the hostel-type accommodation where they lived.

The court heard that she suffered bruising and cuts to her lip, nose and face and soreness to her body and her scalp where she had been dragged by the hair.

Grist, of St Bede's Lodge, Birch Hall Avenue, pleaded guilty to assaulting Miss Yewdale causing her actual bodily harm. She was remanded on bail until March 21 for the preparation of pre-sentence reports.

Elliott Taylforth, defending, said St Bede's Lodge was a care centre and his client was diagnosed as "borderline personality disorder."

He added: "My instructions are that the attack was not completely unprovoked.

"She accepts she had too much to drink but the aggrieved was abusive towards her calling her, among other things, a retard.

"She reacted in the only way she knew how but she now accepts that was incorrect."