Four charged over Springfield Park assault

Four people have been charged after a Rochdale teenager was attacked and racially abused in Springfield Park.

The 17-year old girl suffered a fractured eye socket in the brutal attack on Tuesday 16 June.

Kirsty Leigh Hood, 19, of Yewdale Gardens in Castleton, has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.

Two others, a girl aged 16 and a 15-year-old boy, have been charged with racially aggravated section 47 assault. The fourth, a 16-year-old girl, has been charged with a public order offence.

They are due before Rochdale Magistrates' Court on 5 August.

The 17-year old girl had taken her three young sisters to play on the swings in the park together with her sister-in-law, who had also taken her 12-month-old baby daughter.

Confronted by two girls already on the swings, the victim and her sisters were told they could not use them and were racially abused. A short time later, a third girl and a boy joined in the abuse.

One of the girls then punched the victim in the face, and the pendant from her bracelet embedded itself in the teenager's right cheek, narrowly missing her eyeball.

The victim was taken by ambulance to Rochdale Infirmary with the pendant still embedded in her face, where doctors removed it.

She was left with a cut beneath her eye, a fractured eye socket and severe bruising.

Police Constable Lee Worswick, of the Hate Crime Unit based at Rochdale, said: "This was a particularly savage attack on a young teenage girl who had simply gone out with her three younger sisters to play on the swings. If the pendant had gone into her eyeball, she could have suffered permanent damage and lost her eyesight. If that had happened, this senseless and needless attack would have ended in tragedy.

"Racism in any form is totally abhorrent, and shows a complete lack of education and understanding for other cultures. We are working very hard through the Hate Crime Unit to send out the message that we will not tolerate this sort of behaviour and we will punish racists."