Alison Correa: Woman’s booze-fuelled assaults at Yot Club, Cali Beach

A Coast woman forced one victim to hide in a bathroom and uploaded a video of a violent attack on a bartender to social media. Read what happened here.

A young woman has blamed alcohol and a soured high school friendship for violent attacks on other women at two of the Gold Coast’s most popular bars and clubs.

Alison Correa armed herself with three cups and approached the bar at Cali Beach in Surfers Paradise, where she was drinking with friends on May 7.

Police prosecutor Andrew Smith told Southport Magistrates Court that the 21-year-old launched the cups into a bartender’s face, leaving her with bleeding wounds on the bridge of her nose and her eyebrow.

Alison Correa leaving Southport courthouse. Picture: Jessica Paul

He said Correa had one of her friends film the assault and later uploaded it to her Snapchat story.

“(She) stated she knew the victim as they went to school together, (and) their relationship had soured and they had a falling out years prior,” Sen Const. Smith said.

“A couple of months prior to the assault, (Correa) stated the victim had spat in one of her friend’s faces during a night out, causing the relationship to worsen.”

Correa’s second alcohol-fuelled attack came only a week later on May 14, when she was out at the Yot Club in Main Beach.

The court heard Correa asked another woman on the dance floor for a sip of her drink, and when denied she shoulder-barged her and walked away.

Sen Const. Smith said it was later in the evening that Correa suddenly lunged at the woman and clawed at her chest, tearing through her clothing and ripping off her bra.

She continued to rake her fingernails down the woman’s exposed chest, leaving her with several scratches and forcing her to hide in a nearby bathroom.

When Correa was later interviewed by police, she said she consumed about 10 cans of Jack Daniel’s before reaching the venue and had little recollection of the assault.

Defence lawyer Maggie Dupuis, of Howden Sagger Lawyers, said her client was struggling with depressive symptoms and alcohol abuse at the time due to a violent ex-partner and being alienated from her own family.

She said Correa’s mental health had improved significantly since moving back to her family home, and she was now focused on saving money and completing tertiary study.

Magistrate Catherine Pirie acknowledged Correa was going through a difficult period at the time, but said she was “without an excuse” for alcohol-fuelled violence in the eyes of the courts.

Correa pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm.

She was placed on probation for 12 months and no conviction was recorded.

Originally published as Alison Correa: Woman’s booze-fuelled assaults at Yot Club, Cali Beach