A young mum who was hurt in a savage unprovoked attack has said she will never go out in Spalding again because it is not safe.
Hayley Clayton had been out in town with a large group of work friends celebrating a colleague’s retirement.
They had been for a meal and after a few drinks decided to head for the town’s nightclub Loaded.
But at the end of the evening as Hayley was waiting outside with her husband, she took a vicious punch to the head from a woman walking past.
Hayley (32), of Moulton Seas End, fell to the ground, banging her head and knocking her unconscious.
The next thing she recalls is waking up in Peterborough hospital with a nasty wound to her eye.
The attack had resulted in a fracture to her eye socket and a leak in a pressure pocket behind her eye.
At one point it was feared Hayley could lose her sight in that eye.
The physical injuries from the attack are now healing, but Hayley is still struggling to cope with the emotional trauma of being attacked in the street for no apparent reason.
She said: “Nothing happened to provoke the attack, there was no conversation at all.
“I was standing there, calling my friend who was still inside the club to see if she wanted to share a taxi with us.
“I saw this couple walking towards us and as they got level with us the woman just punched me on the left side of my face and I fell.”
Hayley has a gap in her memory of a few hours after the attack, coming to only later in hospital.
But her husband Mark (38) has since told her that after punching her, her attacker and the man with her ran off.
She said: “Mark went after the man, but the bouncers from Loaded wrestled him to the ground.
“Apparently there were a couple of witnesses, but apparently there were some conflicting stories about who did it.
“My husband is sure it was the woman who hit me and one of the witnesses said it was too, but I don’t remember at all.
“As far as I know the police haven’t caught the woman who did it.
“I was quite badly hurt. At one point there was some concern about my sight but what frightened me most when I woke up was the cut on my face because there was quite a lot of blood.”
A police spookesman said no arrest had yet been made in connection with Hayley’s assault, which happened at about 1.45am on August 3 but investigations are still ongoing.
Hayley said: “This was the first time me and Mark had been out in Spalding for about three years, since before we had our daughter.
“But I definitely won’t be going out again. It’s not safe.
“Just a couple of weeks ago there was another man on the front page of the Lincolnshire Free Press who had been badly beaten up in the street.
“This violence is just happening too much and people need to be aware.”