Attack with champagne glass

Viennese celebrant goes berserk at birthday party

A Viennese woman attacked a man on the neck with a broken champagne glass.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/karepa – stock.adobe.com)

On her 50th birthday, a Viennese woman looked too deeply into her champagne glass. She then used it to injure an unpleasant guest on the neck. Tears rolled down her face in court; the sentence was "extraordinarily lenient". Glasses becoming a weapon in the afterlife is not an isolated case. 

On March 3, the corks popped in a bar in Vienna's city center. "I drank a lot of alcohol. It was my 50th birthday," says a trained beautician in Vienna's Landl district. The party ended for her in court. After midnight, the mood changed.

Local guest insulted the defendant
"My daughter surprised me with a cake at midnight. We all clinked glasses and they smeared cake on my face. That's supposed to bring good luck," the 50-year-old tearfully recounts. A customer at the next table is said to have stood up and called the Viennese woman a "fat pig". "It all escalated," she sobs in front of the trainee judge. 

First she poured the contents of her champagne glass onto the victim's T-shirt, then flailed around wildly - causing the glass to break and cut the man on the neck. "It was more luck and coincidence that nothing happened to the victim," says the judge candidate. The victim's wife pulled the Viennese woman by the hair and hit her head on the table. "I regret it. It will never happen again," she promises. 

Defense lawyer Chiara-Maria Brazda (Machac law firm)

(Bild: Pratschner Sophie, Krone KREATIV)

Mild sentence due to job search
Defense lawyer Chiara-Maria Brazda (Machac law firm) emphasizes that compensation had already been paid before the trial - the 50-year-old paid the victim 2,000 euros for the neck cut. For this reason, and because she is currently undergoing a selection process for a new job, the sentence is "extraordinarily lenient": The three months' conditional imprisonment for, among other things, attempted grievous bodily harm do not appear on the Viennese woman's character reference. The public prosecutor's office is still taking time to reflect - not legally binding.

When glasses become weapons
It is not uncommon for drinking glasses to be used as weapons in court: At the end of April, a 41-year-old man was sentenced to nine months' conditional imprisonment for throwing a beer glass at a waiter in Linz. The Upper Austrian had to have his ear stitched. At the beginning of March, a man from Flachgau (28) stood before the jury: He inflicted a 15-centimeter-long wound on his victim with a broken wine glass in front of a Salzburg pub - 13 years in prison for attempted murder.