TWO young women have been acquitted of attacking a woman as she walked home very drunk from a hen night.

Maria Ryder claimed she was attacked by the pair of 20-year-olds as she was making her way through an underpass on her way from Willesborough to New Town, Ashford.

But a jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared Melanie Purton, of Eastern Gardens, Willesborough, and Nicola Barton, of Knott Crescent, Willesborough, of assaulting Miss Ryder causing her actual bodily harm.

During the trial the court heard that when interviewed the two young women both claimed their alleged victim had been drunk and abusive when they saw her in the underpass.

Richard Stilgoe, prosecuting, told the jury: “Creeping into it is an element of self-defence.”

He described how Miss Ryder, then 20, had been returning from a hen night in the early hours of August 7 last year with two relatives and a family friend when the incident had occurred.

There was some shouting between the three women and it was then that she claims she was attacked.

In her evidence Miss Ryder admitted she had been “very drunk” following the hen night and said she didn’t remember being driven back to her mother's house in Willesborough or leaving there to return to her own house in New Town.

However, she said she recalled the two girls in the subway shouting at her and calling her names. She went on to claim both girls had pushed her head against the wall and both had kicked her.

She said she couldn’t defend herself because of the drink she had consumed.

Miss Purton told the court she had heard a lot of noise and shouting as she approached the underpass with her relative Lloyd Purton and friend Nicola Barton.

“It was Maria Ryder. I used to know her years ago, when I was about seven. She was shouting abuse. We came right up close to each other and she continued shouting at me, shouting abuse. I told her to shut up.”

Miss Purton added that she pushed her shoulder with one hand so she would move out of the way but she was punched in the face by Miss Ryder so she hit her back.

But she denied that Maria’s head was banged against the wall. She claimed neither Melanie nor Lloyd had played any part in what had happened.