'I was shouting and screaming for help' - Bilston pub boss left with broken nose and bruises following vicious attack

Diane Elcock needed hospital treatment after being attacked by two men and a woman while serving behind the bar of the Trumpet Inn in High Street, Bilston, on Sunday night.

A 72-year-old man who went to Miss Elcock's aid was also attacked, she said.

Miss Elcock, 50, who also works as a teacher at a primary school in West Bromwich, has been helping her partner Musti Bouameur run the well-known jazz venue for the past 12 years.

She said she now lived in fear they would return. 

The incident happened at about 7.30pm. Earlier in the afternoon she said she had asked a middle-aged man and a younger woman, who had previously been barred from the pub, to leave. 

"I told them it would be better that they drank somewhere else, and  then went out the back to put some distance between them and myself," she said.

"When I went back, they had gone, and I thought that was the end of it."

But at about 7.30 in the evening she said they returned with another man, and the woman walked behind the bar and grabbed hold of Miss Elcock by the neck.

"She had me in a headlock, and punched me in he head," she said.

"She was pulling my hair and hitting me. I was trying to get till switched off behind me, and one of the males started to bang on the till, trying to release the till.

"The other male was starting to take the bottles of the shelf. The girl continued to punch me, the male then started to punch me in the head. She then got me down, low, and I was shouting and screaming for help.

"My elderly customer who was in the pub started to come towards me, trying to help, telling them to leave me alone, and he came to the bar, they pushed him to the ground and started to kick him. 

"I was trying to escape, to get lose from behind the bar. As I fell down to the floor, the girl grabbed hold of me again,, and then she pushed me onto one of the sofas, she got my hair and got my head pulled down towards the ground, and she was inviting the two men to punch me in the head while she held me."

Mr Bouameur, who was upstairs at the time, heard the commotion and went down to help. Outside the pub, the woman made threats that 'your pub is finished,' Miss Elcock added.

She called police while she and Mr Bouameur attempted to detain the three. The one man escaped, but the other and the woman were arrested when police arrived about 15 minutes later.

Miss Elcock was taken to hospital, where she was told she had a fractured nose and multiple bruising. 

"I was supposed to be back at school today, for the first day back after half-term, but I couldn't go into the classroom looking like this. This is the first time I have ever been off work."

She said she was now fearful that the three might come back again. 

"There's not much we can do, it's a pub, we can't lock our customers out," she said.

"There were two more pubs up the road that have had fires, what are the police doing?" she asked.

Miss Elcock said the black man, aged about 50, and the white woman in her 20s, had visited the pub on an open-mic night about September, and were asked to leave as they began disrupting the musicians and interfering with the instruments. 

When they returned on Sunday afternoon, she refused to serve them, and they returned in the evening with another man.

West Midlands Police was approached for comment.