Labrador woman pleads guilty to assaulting a police officer at Sirromet Wines Elton John show

Woman falls down hill at Sirromet Wines concert, crashes into a sign, then hits a police officer in the face.

A GOLD Coast woman who became so intoxicated at an Elton John concert at Sirromet Wines she fell down a hill and assaulted a police officer has been fined $600 in court.

Leigh-Ann Dryden, 30, from Labrador, pleaded guilty to four charges in Cleveland Magistrates Court today. No convictions were recorded.

The court heard that on January 18 this year Dryden, a business development manager at Salisbury training provider WH&S More Skills, attended the Mount Cotton concert with an older male friend.

Over the course of the day, they consumed three bottles of red wine together and by 9pm, Dryden was “erratic and violent”, the court heard.

Dryden let herself through a barricade to enter a restricted area between the general admission area and the Garden Bar.
She was told to return to the GA area, but instead she turned and ran through the Garden Bar before she fell, rolled down a hill and crashed into a sign.

Again, she was asked to return to the GA area but refused, calling a police officer a “c***” and grabbing his head.

Elton John playing Day on the Green at Sirromet Wines. 18th January 2020 Mount Cotton AAP Image/Richard Gosling

Venue security and bar staff then began a 15 minute conversation with Dryden where they continued to urge her to return to the GA area while she hurled obscene language at them.

Finally, she was issued a verbal direction to leave Sirromet Wines entirely, at which point she struck a different police officer in the face.

She was arrested and escorted from the concert.

However, she refused to walk and began throwing herself onto the ground to try and halt their progress.

She was placed in custody for two hours to sober up.

The court heard Dryden had completed an anger management and conflict resolution course and had phoned the two police officers to apologise.

Magistrate Deborah Vasta said Dryden was “very drunk... (and) missed out on a great concert”.