A woman whose face was slashed in a violent attack was sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment yesterday after "taking the law into her own hands" and severely damaging her perpetrator's car.

Tanya Darrell, 36, of WB's Way in Hamilton Parish, admitted to wilfully and unlawfully damaging the car of Wendy Ingemann, 37, on May 9 in Pembroke, after the two were involved in a bitter rivalry over a man, which escalated over a period of many months.

Damage to the car totalled $4,883.76 and included her scratching the word 'whore' into the car bonnet and causing other damages to the car's left and right side mirrors, front and rear windshield wipers, bumpers, fog lamp and lead lamp.

The court heard that Darrell arrived at Robin Hood Pub & Restaurant around 10.20 p.m. after seeing Ingemann's 18-year-old daughter Shante there. Without exchanging any words, Darrell walked straight past the teenager, who was socialising on the patio, and into the car park.

Darrell's friend, a male co-worker used this time to approach Shante Ingemann and said: "Don't even say anything about my co-worker. You don't know how many of us are here. I know who your mother is. She is Wendy."

The teenager did not notice the damage until returning to the car park later that evening, at which point she called the Police. The vehicle was subsequently taken to South Side Police Station and Darrell, who was caught on surveillance, was recognised as the perpetrator.

This offence was considered a "retaliation" to an earlier event last February at Splash nightclub, which left Darrell's face permanently scarred at the hand of Ingemann, a 37-year-old mother of three. Ingemann, who was sentenced in Supreme Court Thursday, is currently serving a three-year jail term for her part in the feud.

Yesterday in Magistrates' Court, Darrell's lawyer Michael Smith argued that his client was acting on a "human" instinct and believed a non-custodial sentence was warranted.

He said: "This was not some random act of vandalism – this was done to the property of a person who had seriously injured her to the extent that she required plastic surgery.

(Darrell) is human just like we all are."

Darrell apologised for her actions saying: "I would just like to apologise to the court and to Ms Ingemann for damaging her car. I acted out of myself. I was angry and didn't take everything into consideration. I am sorry."

But Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner still believed a short-term imprisonment was appropriate. "In my view in the circumstances, it is not a mitigating factor but an aggravating factor, in that you knew who the car belonged to and deliberately attacked the car causing substantial damage.

"This community cannot allow those involved in long-standing feuds to take the law into their own hands. That behaviour needs to be deterred," said the Magistrate, who also ordered Darrell to pay for the full extent of the damages.