AN ARGUMENT between two women over a dog led to one of them being assaulted and needing hospital treatment.

Jean Higgins, 36, of Kirkland Gardens, Ballingry, has now been fined £320 for the offence at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

She was found guilty previously of a charge that on April 10, at Montrose Crescent, Lochore, she assaulted a woman by seizing her by the body and striking her repeatedly on the head to her injury.

Defence solicitor Calum Harris said: “The offence followed a fairly petty argument involving a dog. She went back the next day to try to resolve matters.

“She realises now that this was never going to resolve matters in a civilised manner.”

He added that his client, a mother-of-three, “regrets her actions and it appears to be an isolated incident”.

Sheriff Francis Gill told Higgins: “The assault was such that the woman required hospital treatment and I was not satisfied that you were acting in self-defence.

“You should have let matters lie following the incident the day before but instead you went to see her.”