'I then remember looking in the mirror that was behind my attacker and I could actually see all the blood and my cheek hanging off.'
A mum who was glassed in the face by a stranger at a nightclub says she still has ‘flashbacks and nightmares’ more than a year after the attack.
Natalie Arthurs was on a night out with a friend at Peppermint bar in Swansea, Wales in November 2022 when she was glassed in the bar’s bathroom.
She was re-applying her make-up when a complete stranger entered the bathroom with a broken glass and started slashing at her face.
Natalie, 36, is now campaigning for all drinks in clubs to be served in plastic cups.
She’s joined forces with Matthew Syron, who was left ‘blinded’ after an unprovoked glass attack on Boxing Day last year. His attacker has since been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Speaking to the BBC, Natalie, a mum of one, said: ‘I heard a very angry voice saying “who do you think you are” or something along those lines.
‘As I turned around I just saw white hair and a white flash of light. That’s when the glass struck me in the face.
‘I knew instantly it was a glass because you could feel the cold sharpness of it cutting at my face.
‘I then remember looking in the mirror that was behind my attacker and I could actually see all the blood and my cheek hanging off.’
Natalie remembers her friend Jenna ‘screaming in terror’ as the glass came towards her again, with the second slash cutting her shoulder and chest.
She tried to defend herself until the club’s doormen removed the attacker while they waited for police to arrive.
Natalie was taken to Morriston Hospital in Swansea by her parents after they were told an ambulance would take up to six hours to arrive.
She underwent an operation on her face lasting almost four hours.
More than a year later, Emily Williams, 25, from Carmarthenshire, was jailed for five years for the assault.
‘Before the attack I was a very trusting person and I would approach everyone with kindness and see everyone as a friend, but this has completely changed my outlook on people’s intentions and what they are capable of,’ Natalie added.
‘Every night before I go to sleep, I do think of the attack. I still have constant flashbacks and nightmares.’
Natalie says her six-year-old daughter, Skyla, was ‘tearful and scared’ after seeing her fact for the first time after the operation.
She hasn’t been able to return to her job as a cleaner because she no longer feels safe working alone in ‘big buildings full of people’.
And while she’s ‘accepting’ the scar on her face, and trying not to think negatively about it, she doesn’t think she’ll ‘ever feel beautiful again’.
‘After the operation, my face was very swollen. I didn’t look like the same mummy, basically, for Skyla to look at,’ Natalie added.
‘We were cuddling and she said “are you going to miss being pretty?”
‘Obviously with kids there’s no filter so it kind of made me chuckle a little bit but it was just sad, those words that she said.
‘It’s nothing you should really see your mum go through.’
Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, told the BBC the ‘industry had done a lot of work’ around the safety of serving drinks and assessing risk.
‘The primary concern for us is obviously just making sure that people are safe,’ he said, adding that many venues already use polycarbonate cups.
‘We’ve got to work towards creating a much safer environment.’
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