‘I virtually went blind after a girl glassed me’ horse rider reveals

Two years ago, Felicity was studying for a degree in Business and Management, while at the same time – inspired in part by Selling Sunset (the US reality TV series about life inside an elite estate agency) – building her own career in property; all while enjoying the busy social life of any other outgoing 21-year-old.

Then came the events of September 24, 2022, the concluding night of the racing season at historic Chester Racecourse.

The circumstances of that ­Saturday night were played out in lurid detail at Chester Crown Court this week, when 22-year-old some-time groom and equestrian Mia Troake pleaded guilty to thrusting a stemmed gin glass into Felicity’s face in a fit of rage over a man.

The glass shattered, leaving Felicity, herself a keen horsewoman, covered in glass and blood and needing the ­attention of a plastic surgeon to sew her upper lip back together.

She narrowly escaped being blinded, as fragments of glass were embedded in the delicate skin underneath her eye.

Two years on, the faded but still ­visible scar above Felicity’s lip stands testament to the damage caused that night – an ever-present reminder of the weeks of being unable to smile without pain.

There are, however, as the young businesswoman read out in her victim impact statement, other scars that are less visible: psychological, emotional and financial reminders.

It is why she is speaking to the Mail and why she was so bitterly ­disappointed when Troake, who admitted unlawful wounding, walked free from court on Monday with, as Felicity puts it, little more than a ‘telling off’.

Under sentencing guidelines, Troake, who has worked as a nanny and in a nursery, faced up to three years jail – instead she was given an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and an order to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,000 in compensation to her victim.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ says an exasperated Felicity, who was so shaken by her ordeal that she didn’t go out for three months after the attack and only felt confident enough to walk up to a bar and order a drink again this year.

‘For her to just walk away with a telling off from a judge . . . really? She suffers for 15 minutes and I suffer for two years. I feel like the whole justice system has completely let me down. I want her to know what I have gone through and what I have had to deal with.’

Felicity’s ordeal came out of nowhere on a night that should have been one of light-hearted fun to celebrate a friend’s birthday. They’d gone to The Church, in Chester city centre, a bar and ­restaurant that was bustling on any weekend, but even more so on a race night.

‘I remember sitting in the taxi on my way out, thinking to myself, “I wonder what is going to happen tonight?”, out of pure excitement about who I was going to meet.’

Also in the bar were Mia Troake and her then boyfriend, a man (who shall remain nameless) who had some two years earlier been Felicity’s long-term boyfriend.

Not that she was carrying a torch for him. ‘I was completely over it,’ she insists. When Felicity saw her former flame with a group of pals, she went to say ‘hello’, even ­complimenting Troake – a petite brunette – on her dress.

‘It was all really nice and civil and that was the end of it.’

Or so she thought. Half an hour later, she found herself standing next to her ex at the bar and engaging in small talk, while Troake stood near by.

Felicity describes what ­happened next as coming out of nowhere. ‘Mia taps me on the shoulder and she was really angry and asking me questions, like, “Why are you speaking to my boyfriend? Leave him alone, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

‘I was like, that’s fine, calm down. I just want to have a nice time with my friends, there’s no need to have an argument.’

Felicity remains bewildered. ‘She approached me, she was ­asking me these questions … winding me up, asking me stupid things, like whether I still fancied him, whether I wanted to sleep with him again, why I was here, why I was stood next to him…’ Troake’s drunken goading ­culminated in one final question, did Felicity want to sleep with her boyfriend?

Felicity’s flippant, sarcastic response is one she must sorely wish she had never uttered. ‘Yeahh, I want to …’ she quipped. The rest is a blur. ‘She pulls me around by the shoulder and then she smashes me in the face with a glass.

‘It felt like there was liquid all over my face, so I was wiping my face with my hands and then I looked down at my hands and my body and realised I was covered in blood,’ says Felicity, whose composure belies the panic attacks she still gets when she hears the sound of breaking glass.

She still has the photographs on her phone that document, so ­vividly, what happened that night.

At the start of the evening she is glamorous in a striking blue, ­figure-hugging dress – at the end of it, she stands in the back of an ambulance, the same dress ­covered in blood.

Of the many mental snapshots of the ­chaotic aftermath, one stands out; it is of her reaching inside her dress and pulling out the broken stem of the glass, before ­adrenaline and panic kicked in.

‘I’m surrounded by security,’ she says. ‘People asking me questions, taking photos, there’s blood everywhere, people are picking glass out of my hair, out of my dress and I’m just like, “What the heck is going on?”. I was in shock, utter shock.’

An ambulance was called and Felicity was taken to hospital, where she was joined by her ­terrified mother. ‘I just remember the look on my mum’s face when she walked in and saw me,’ says Felicity. ‘She stopped in her tracks, then came towards me and sobbed.’

The clean-up operation was far worse than the pain of the attack, as the doctor picked the glass, piece by piece, from her face.

‘There was glass underneath my nose, in between my nostrils and by my lip there was a flap of skin, with glass underneath it. There were tiny pieces of glass all over the right side of my face and my forehead.’ At one point the pain was so intense, she fainted.

‘It was when I got home that it hit me what had happened. I couldn’t smile without it hurting; my friends would come over and try to cheer me up and I every time I smiled, whenever I tried to think, “Be happy, I’m fine, I’m alive” there was a twinge of pain, like a constant reminder.’

Felicity counts herself fortunate that the pain, like her scar, has faded.

But as she tells me, ‘the psychological and emotional impact has been worse.

‘It happened in September and I couldn’t go out again until New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t until this year that I felt I could walk up to a bar and order a drink.’

She is not someone who likes to focus on the negative, but her victim impact statement to court laid out the extent of her ordeal.

‘The psychological impact has been ­debilitating,’ she said. ‘I have suffered from extreme anxiety, especially in social settings. The sound of breaking glass triggers panic attacks and I struggle to relax in crowded spaces. I have been diagnosed with mild PTSD and am receiving cognitive behavioural therapy online to manage symptoms. This has helped, but I continue to face significant challenges in rebuilding my confidence.’

This young woman’s career, too, has undergone a dramatic change; in the wake of the attack she had to take three months off work and when she returned she was made ­redundant. Her confidence was so eroded, she left the property world altogether and now has her own digital marketing business.

‘This has knocked my confidence,’ she says. ‘I was very open-minded, I would confidently speak to anyone, I was very ambitious to continue my career in property . . .’ her voice trails away. ‘I’m not the same, I would usually be out and about doing things, now I would rather be at home, around people I know.

‘If I hear the sound of breaking glass, even on the TV, I go completely inside myself and remember what happened again.’

The two-year wait for justice has not helped, nor has the knowledge that Troake tried to flee the scene of the attack and initially claimed she’d acted in self-defence.

In mitigation, her solicitor advocate Peter Barnett said his client, who did admit her guilt, earning a reduction in sentence, has subsequently split up with her boyfriend, adding: ‘It would seem quite clear that at the time she had insecurity issues in respect to her relationship and the partner she had at the time.’

Sentencing her, judge Mr Recorder Eric Lamb noted the stark contrast in impact on two lives. ‘The effects of what you have done to ­Felicity Calveley have been long-lasting and substantial,’ he said. ‘For your part, you have been able to move on from the failed relationship. You moved elsewhere in the country and were able to follow your chosen career.

‘By contrast Miss Calveley has made it clear that your actions have resulted in her being beset by anxiety and fear. Not only has she suffered medically, she has also suffered a lot of substantial effects, the impact on her social life, her work was affected for months, it had a direct consequence on her finances.

‘All of that is directly as a result of you ­drinking too much in the course of one day and choosing to confront someone you plainly saw as your rival.’

All words with which Felicity would ­wholeheartedly agree. She is bright and determined, planning a relocation to ­Australia and, finally, in a place where she is excited about what her future holds; but given all she has been through to get to this point, she struggles to understand why her attacker has escaped so lightly.

‘An 18 months sentence suspended by two years and 100 hours of community service, that’s like five hours a week. It’s ridiculous, how is that going to teach her anything?

‘I just can’t understand it, when somebody violently hurts some another person, with a weapon, how is that OK?’