Katherine Pye has been jailedKatherine Pye(Image: GMP)

A drunk woman who bottled an innocent man ‘for no apparent reason’ during a night out has been locked up.

Katherine Pye, 42, hit a total stranger in the face with a broken bottle after a night in Oldham town centre. Carlos Ventura, 24, had been out with friends and had headed to a takeaway before being attacked by Pye in the street.

Manchester Crown Court heard how he was left with serious cuts to his face and neck, and was even told he could have died or been left paralysed had his injuries been inflicted millimetres either side.

Prosecuting, Adam Lodge told how Mr Ventura had been out in Oldham town centre with friends on the night of Saturday, November 4, 2023, and into the early hours of the following morning. He and his pals had been in the Liquid and Envy nightclub until it closed at 4am, and then headed to a nearby takeaway on Yorkshire Street for some food.

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When they arrived they saw Pye causing a ‘disturbance’. She was shouting and being aggressive, and appeared to be intoxicated, Mr Lodge said.

She left the takeaway and picked up a glass bottle, which she smashed onto the floor. ‘For no apparent reason’, she used the remainder of the broken bottle to attack Mr Ventura, striking him to the face with it.

His shocked friends immediately saw he had suffered deep cuts to his face. Pye left the scene. She was identified through video footage and was apprehended the following day.

In an interview with police, Pye admitted hitting a man in the face with a glass bottle but claimed she’d been acting in self defence. She maintained her claim and went to trial, forcing Mr Ventura to give evidence.

Then she changed her plea to guilty after damning further video evidence came to light. Mr Ventura was taken to hospital and needed stitches.

He later recalled being told that if his wounds had been millimetres either side, he could have died or been paralysed.

“That girl was angry, she was after a fight,” Mr Ventura said in a statement read on his behalf. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this.

“I don’t even remember speaking to her or having any kind of interaction with her. I don’t feel like it is an exaggeration to say she could have killed me that night.”

Mr Ventura told how he continues to deal with the impact of what happened that night, almost two years on. He said he has suffered permanent scarring to his face and neck, which is a constant reminder of his ordeal.

Speaking of Pye’s initial denials, he continued: “If I had done something so bad I wouldn’t have put people through it. I would stand up and take responsibility. I don’t feel like she is sorry.”

Pye, of Dickens Street, Oldham, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm on the third day of her trial, after Mr Ventura had given evidence before a jury.

Pye has no previous convictions, but received a caution in 2022 for being drunk and disorderly. Defending, Daniel Lister said that Pye was ‘alcohol dependent’ at the time.

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But he said that Pye is now an ‘entirely different person’, and has since become sober. Mr Lister said that after being shown images of the injuries she had been caused in the days after the attack, she had decided to ‘turn her life around’.

Appealing to the judge to pass a sentence to allow Pye to retain her freedom, Mr Lister said her progress and her relationship with her children would be affected if she were sent to jail.

The judge, Recorder Jennifer Cleeve, noted that Pye had made ‘immense positive steps’ to turn her life around, but said the case was so serious that only a prison sentence was justified.

Pye was sentenced to four years in prison, and told she could serve up to half of that period in jail. She had been subjected to a curfew since November 2023. As a result, 348 days of this curfew, almost a year, will count towards her sentence.