Pretty teen brutally beaten in Cirencester attack (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Pretty teen brutally beaten in Cirencester attack

6:30am Thursday 28th February 2013 in News Exclusive By Laura Shack

A STUNNING Cirencester teenager needed reconstructive surgery after she was punched, kicked and stamped in the face in a vicious attack.

Alex Nolan, a bar manager at The Fleece, was left lying on the ground in an unconscious and bloodied state in Swan Yard at around 1am on Saturday, February 16.

The 19-year-old’s nose had been broken in two places and her cheekbone and eye socket were so badly crushed that she may need a metal plate put into her face.

But the most shocking part for Alex was that her attacker was a friend.

“I trusted him,” she said. “He’d been in a fight earlier that night and I took him to Swan Yard to calm him down.

“We were having a laugh and everything was fine. The next moment he flipped out. I turned around and he punched me in the back of my head.

“I think he must have knocked me out in the first punch because the next thing I remember was waking up on the ground with lots of people around me. Everything was a blur.”

While Alex, who is 5ft 6ins and weighs just over seven stone, lay unconscious on the ground her attacker, who was described as a “big and stocky lad” was reported to have carried on punching her in the head.

One of the teenager’s female friends found him on top of her and tried desperately to intervene. This was reportedly when he started to kick the back of Alex’s head, lacerating her skull, and stamp down on her face with enough force to detach her eye socket from her cheekbone.

The former Cirencester College student temporarily lost her vision in one eye and her head wounds were so severe that doctors at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital feared she might have suffered brain damage.

Recovering at her Beeches home, Alex told the Standard: “I cried instantly when I first saw my face in the mirror. It was horrible to think I was going to be like that forever. It didn’t look like me.”

She added that she had been in constant pain since the attack and was afraid to leave her house because of her battered appearance.

“I haven’t left the house much because when I first came out of hospital I got stared at a lot. When my friends saw me they’d start crying – it’s been really upsetting. I just want my normal life back.”

Her parents, Ann and Andy, said it been “heartbreaking.”

“It was so malicious and nasty, you just can’t comprehend it,” dad Andy said. “It’s our baby daughter – we just feel numb.”

Hundreds of messages of support and horror have poured on to the teenager’s Facebook page following the attack and her home now “looks like a florist” because of all the flowers and gifts that have been posted.

“I’m really thankful for everyone’s support,” Alex said. “It’s just been amazing and it’s helped me so much.”

• A 20-year-old man, currently living in Swindon, was picked up by police on the A419 in Cirencester at around 3.20am on Saturday, February 16. He has been arrested in connection with the attack and has been bailed until March 4, pending further enquiries.