Vicious three-girl teenage gang ambushed a schoolgirl in a park and battered her with a METAL WHEEL BRACE after she was spotted hugging a boy in a Facebook picture

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A violent gang of teenage girls battered a 14-year-old in a park after she was spotted hugging a boy in a Facebook picture.

The group of three ambushed the young teen and smashed her over the head with a metal wheelbrace. 

Attackers Sophie Burrows, 19, Lauren Coveney, also 19, and a 17-year-old who can't be named for legal reasons all appeared in Guildford Crown Court. 

Attackers Sophie Burrows, 19, pictured left and Lauren Coveney, also 19, pictured right 

The female trio drove miles to track down their 14-year-old victim after seeing her photo on Facebook, hugging a lad.

They found her in a park in Surrey and, in pitch black, asked her to pick who to fight. 

Burrows then slid the 30cms long black metal bar from her sleeve and said: 'You made the worst mistake of your life,' the court heard.

Burrows wept in the dock as she was sentenced to 14 months in a youth offenders' institution for the vicious attack which left the innocent schoolgirl with deep gashes to her head.

Co-attacker Lauren Coveney, aged 19 years, escaped with a suspended prison sentence and a 17-year-old girl was given a referral order by Judge Neil Stewart.

The victim, who cannot be named, was left with a head injury, fractured nose, bruised ribs and two black eyes in the brutal attack and has been left mentally traumatised by the horrific event.

The violent gang had sent insulting messages to the girl on social media before going to physically assault her on January 9 last year. 

The attackers admitted one count of unlawful wounding with intent in Stoughton recreation ground in Northway, Guildford.

They had sent each other text messages boasting about leaving their victim with 'two gaping wounds' to the head and a scar across her nose.

Hannah Duncan, prosecuting at Guildford Crown Court, said the shape of the victim's head injuries matched the grooves on the end of the wheel brace.

'There was some kind of online chat none of which now exists,' she said.

'It was all on Facebook, about [the girl] who was the complainant in this case.'

Burrows, left, wept in the dock as she was sentenced to 14 months in a youth offenders' institution while Coveney, right escaped with a suspended prison sentence

She said it was the photo of the girl hugging her male friend that triggered the horrific attack.  

'It would appear that someone alerted these defendants as to where she was,' said prosecuter Duncan. 'They then travelled some distance to go and seek her out.

'They go into the park... Sophie Burrows having taken a wheel brace from the car with her.

'There was another friend with her as well, Alan, who with the defendants it is fair to say tried to persuade Sophie Burrow not to take it with her several times - but she slid it up her sleeve and took it anyway.

'They went into the recreation ground and stormed straight up to the girl.

'Sophie then said to her "you have to pick one of us to have a fight".

'The girl was frightened but she didn't want them to know that because she thought that would make it worse.'

The prosecutor said that the girl picked Burrows, not knowing she had the wheelbrace hidden under her sleeve.

The terrified victim was backing away and threw a 'pre-emptive punch' at Burrows after her attacker told her: 'That was the worst mistake of your life'.

Ms Duncan added: 'She was set upon by all three girls. She ended up very quickly on the floor and there were blows being rained down on her - kicks and punches.

'To start with she tried to fight back but then she just had to cower on the floor and hope that they stopped. That was not before she had felt two or three blows across her head and face with something which was very cold, not a fist or a foot.'

Showing a photo of the black metal wheelbrace to the court, Ms Duncan said the victim was hit with such force that the grooves on the end used to remove car wheel bolts matched the shapes of her head injuries.

'One can see the end implement can fit in the end of a bolt on a car wheel and in fact some of the shapes [on its grooves] match her wounds,' she said.

The victim had to have two 'gaping' head wounds glued together after she was taken to hospital. 

Her mother burst into tears as she walked through their front door still bleeding heavily from the attack, the judge heard.

'She had two open wounds to her head. They had to be glued and stitched back together.

'Her nose was bent, she did have a scar across her nose. There is a lump on her nose now and the Crown would say that that is something a young girl would be quite concerned about. She also had very sore ribs.'

The judge was told that she now suffered from depression and lived in fear of meeting her attackers again.

Texts and messages later revealed the the three bullies had boasted of the injuries to their friends, saying that video of the brutal assault would be uploaded onto social media.

The messages 5ft 4ins Burrows sent to her ex-boyfriend Taz were read out in court.

They said: 'She chose to fight me out of the three of us, she is bleeding hard, her fault.

'She has a cut, I was screaming at her and she was walking backwards.

'There is a video of me hitting her with a crowbar, that is the problem and she is known as a grass.

'I would not normally have the guts to hit someone with a weapon but I was really drunk.'

The female trio drove miles to track down their 14-year-old victim after seeing her photo on Facebook, hugging a lad

She sent another to her co-attacker saying: 'We need to discuss what we are going to do, what our story is going to be.'

The court heard the 17-year-old replied: 'Yes we do, ha ha', and that her mother had been telling her to deny the attack and delete the messages on her mobile phone.

The judge was told that Coveney, who appeared in the dock with bleached white hair, wrote to Burrows: 'I must have broke her ribs and given her a head injury.

Burrows replied: 'I cannot believe that, you did good.'

Officers found the wheelbrace and downloaded the phone messages when Coveney drove them to give voluntary interviews to police on January 12 last year.

Burrows and her victim's DNA were found on the weapon, which had been cleaned and left in the car.

The prosecutor said she said she had fought back in self-defence but denied possession of the weapon. The other two denied wrong-doing.

Burrows, from Long Gore in Godalming, Surrey, admitted wounding without intent at her first opportunity in court after officers found the messages on the phones.

Coveney and the juvenile admitted the charge on the first day of their trial.

Judge Stewart, who was told none of the defendants had a criminal conviction, sentenced Burrows, who works at a Gala Bingo hall, first. She gulped and started crying in the dock after she was sentenced to 14 months in a youth offenders' institution.

'There had been ridiculous and stupid arguments on Facebook - wholly unnecessary - and there had been insults flying and it was decided that the victim who was the other end of the argument, should be confronted,' he said.

'The three of you ended up in a car and arrived by the recreation ground in Park Barn where you knew she would be. When you left the car, Sophie Burrows, you had with you a wheelbrace.

'There is clear evidence to suggest the other two of you knew she had it.

'It ended up with the three of you attacking the one of her. She was 14 at the time and you were respectively 18, 18 and 16 and you Sophie Burrows used that wheelbrace and hit her over the head with it.

'Two open wounds on her head, which had to be glued together and bruising to her arms, elbow and a mark on her nose which was swollen and she also reported injuries to her ribs, serious injuries.

'She has been depressed and she lives in fear now. This sort of experience for a young girl must be absolutely devastating.

'As far as Sophie Burrows was concerned, you were the one who took the leading role in the attack, the others took a lesser role. You were the one who took the weapon to the scene and by your own admission, used it.'

He noted her remorse over the attack and previous good character and said 'no court wishes to impose a custodial sentence on a young person' but he said he could not justify suspending her sentence.

He jailed her to 14 months in a youth offenders' institution and said : 'This offence was too severe for anything other than that.'

Coveney, from Petersfield Road in Midhurst, West Sussex, received a 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years.

The girl juvenile was given a 12 month referral order, which had been recommended by a probation service report on her.

She and Coveney were ordered to each pay £960 compensation to the victim.

All three defendants were given a restraining order banning them from entering the Park Barn area of Guildford for three years.