A KENDAL pub landlady has told a court how her step-daughter's real mother knocked her to the ground and kicked her during an argument.

Josephine Metcalfe, licensee of the Kendal Bowman, told a jury at Carlisle Crown Court that Cilla Smith-Hammond became violent after she arrived at the pub to persuade the girl to go home and live with her instead.

"She started shouting and screaming in my face," she said.

"Then she attacked me."

Mrs Metcalfe said Smith-Hammond grabbed her round the neck so hard she was choking.

Then, she said, she punched her in the face and knocked her to the ground.

"She came at me again," Mrs Metcalfe said.

"She started kicking me.

Virtually everywhere."

Smith-Hammond has pleaded not guilty to assaulting Mrs Metcalfe, causing her actual bodily harm.

Prosecuting counsel Gavin McBride told the jury that Smith-Hammond's 13-year-old daughter had been living with her father - Mrs Metcalfe's husband - for about eight weeks at the time of the incident in February last year.

The fight began when Smith-Hammond went to the pub to speak to her daughter, to ask her to return home.

Mrs Metcalfe was attacked when she heard the two arguing and went out to intervene, he said.

When interviewed by the police, Smith-Hammond said she had only tried to defend herself after Mrs Metcalfe attacked her.

The trial continues.