little sympathy | 

Couple who came off worse in Portrush fight they started appear in court

They got married last year while on bail for the crimes

Yesterday at 09:35

This is the couple who started a fight in a Portrush carpark and ended up coming off worse.

Judge Alistair Devlin said the fact Stephanie Millar and Steven Tyler had suffered more significant injuries than their victims was “hardly a point in mitigation”.

He told them the people they attacked were entitled to defend themselves, so “you can scarcely expect much sympathy from this court”.

Millar, from Millburn Park in Cookstown, admitted one count of actual bodily harm and two of common assault.

Tyler, of the same address, admitted one count of common assault.

They got married last year while on bail for the crimes.

Antrim Crown Court was told police were called to reports of a disturbance in Portrush on January 26, 2019.

When officers arrived at the scene, they saw a seven-seat taxi with passengers and a driver still inside and Millar and Tyler “standing a few metres away”.

Broken glass was strewn across the ground and inside the vehicle.

The victims — a husband and wife and their 16-year-old daughter — told the police they had shared a cab with Millar and Tyler, who they did not know.

They said that after the vehicle came to a stop, Millar grabbed the woman by her hair and “used a gin glass to strike her to the side of the head and face”.

When her husband stood up to intervene, Millar hit him on the hand with the broken glass, while Tyler punched him in the face.

The woman sustained minor cuts to her head and face, and her husband a broken finger, but Tyler and Millar were left with bruises, black eyes and suspected broken noses after the male victim hit them while defending his wife and daughter.

The judge told the defendants the injuries they caused could have been so much worse, especially because Millar had used a glass.

He sentenced the mother-of-four to a nine-month prison term but told the court it was not without some hesitation that he was suspending it for two years.

The judge said he was concerned Millar had referred to herself as a victim in a pre-sentence report. He added: “[She] struggled to express remorse for her actions or recognise the distress [of] the victims.”

In addition to the suspended sentence, Millar was ordered pay £1,000 in compensation to the woman she attacked.

Tyler was ordered to complete 60 hours of community service.