A mother of four who was given a suspended sentence for killing her drunken partner has been conditionally discharged for an assault committed just three months after her trial.

In July 2004, Julie Harris was found guilty of the manslaughter of Graham Carter and sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for two years.

But Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that Harris, 35, of Smith House Close, Brighouse, headbutted Emma Goodyear in the face in the toilets of a nightclub in Halifax in October 2004.

Prosecutor Helen Sanderson said Miss Goodyear blacked out temporarily and suffered a swollen and bloodied nose.

Harris claimed she had accidentally bumped heads with Miss Goodyear as she fell forward, but magistrates found her guilty of common assault.

Harris, who had been in a 16-year relationship with Mr Carter, stabbed him in the back during a row at their home in December 2003.

After two days in hospital he returned home but was re-admitted and suffered a heart attack caused by an infection in the knife wound.

Sentencing Harris in July 2004. Mr Justice Smith said he took into account that she had suffered years of possessive, abusive and sometimes threatening behaviour.

Yesterday, Michelle Colborne, for Harris, told the Honorary Recorder of Bradford, Judge Stephen Gullick, the incident in the nightclub had been "the straw that broke the camel's back".

She said Harris had been under a great deal of strain during her trial and within a month of the assault she was in a psychiatric hospital.

The nightclub incident took place just a few days before Harris was made the subject of a 12-month community rehabilitation order for an earlier assault. Judge Gullick was told she had not committed any further offences for 14 months.

Although the nightclub assault was in breach of her suspended prison sentence Judge Gullick decided not to send the case back to Mr Justice Smith.

"It does not seem to me sensible, given all that I've read and given the progress your have made, to make you subject of a community rehabilitation order again," he told Harris.

The suspended sentence for manslaughter remains in force until July and Judge Gullick imposed a six-month conditional discharge for the common assault alongside it.