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Court Date: Gerry Cowper & Allec Foley |
The pregnant teenage daughter of ex-EastEnders star Gerry Cowper spat in her mother’s hair and threw beer over her during a row over drinking and smoking cannabis.
The 18 year-old had been drinking through the night with her boyfriend at the family’s £1m home and reacted after Ms Cowper - who played Rosie Miller in the BBC soap - called her: “Disgusting.”
Student Allec Foley also smashed a front door glass pane and split a wooden fireplace, which she angrily shoved out of her way, during the heated row.
She was convicted at Wimbledon Magistrates Court of assaulting her mother, 58, on July 19, last year at 12 Saville Road, Twickenham and causing criminal damage to the pane and fireplace.
Foley received a twelve-month conditional discharge and magistrate Mr. Rod Wood told her: “Drink played a significant part in what happened.
“In an agitated state you pushed the fire surround and beer was thrown towards your mother and spit directed at your mother.”
Allec, who is due to give birth to a boy in six weeks, told the court: “I’d been drinking throughout the night and had an argument with my boyfriend about the pregnancy.
“My mum called me: ‘Disgusting’ and said I was smoking and drinking while pregnant and I said: ’That’s disgusting’ and spat.”
Gerry fled the four-bed house and called 999 from her car at 8am, also fearing for her daughter’s safety after she cut her wrist with a razor blade.
When quizzed by officers Allec said the row escalated when her mother snapped: “You’re still smoking weed. You’re disgusting.”
She told the court she broke the glass a couple of days earlier when trying to get her sister to answer the door. “I was really intoxicated at this point and my hand went through the glass and was bleeding.”
Allec claimed the spiting incident was accidental. “There was never any point that I intended that, she was halfway down the stairs.
“The beer was a gesture, there was no intention to get it out of the bottle. In anger I threw my arm and the beer did go over the wall and floor.”
Despite complaining about her daughter to police Gerry tried to get her off in court and even made a withdrawal statement. “I did not dream for one second the next step would be this.
“She was on the floor crying and was quite distressed. The pregnancy was fresh in my mind and we got into a verbal exchange about that.
“I said: ‘Oh, are you keeping it are you?’ which upset Allec quite a lot.”
At one point Allec hid in a cupboard and told her mother to: “F*** off,” and they had another “screaming match” the day before, the court heard.
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Police Called To Saville Road House |
“She was very concerned and very distressed and on this morning she attempted self-harm and took some tablets. I saw the fresh blood and said: ‘I need to call you an ambulance’.
“At the bottom of the stairs something wet hit my back. I thought I had sticky beer in my hair.
“They said: ‘We’re charging your daughter’ and I said: ‘You’re joking.’
“I never supported this prosecution. I never wanted a prosecution to come from what I said, I was misled.”
PC Scott Brodie said: “Ms Cowper was outside in her car distressed, very upset and it was hard for her to get her words out.
“She told me her daughter had thrown beer at her and spat in her hair and there was a lot of beer on the wall and the top she was wearing was soaked-through at the back.
“The house was very messy and untidy and the fireplace looked like it had been tipped upside down in the hall.”
Fulham-born Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Cowper appeared in the soap between 2004 to 2006.
Her late twin sister Jackie Cowper, who died aged just thirty-six, was also an actress, whose credits included ‘Birds of a Feather’ and ‘The Bill’.
In her early twenties Gerry played Jim Hacker’s daughter Lucy in ‘Yes Minister’ and also appeared in ’Only Fools and Horses’; ‘The Bill’; ‘Casualty’ and Law & Order: UK’.
She also has credits in 1970’s cult movies ‘Frenzy’ and ‘The Wicker Man’.
Her younger sister Nicola Cowper, 48, also appeared in Eastenders as recurring character Gina Williams.
The sisters had long-term relationships with bank-robbing accomplices Mark Foley, 56, and Tony McCann, 57, who snatched £9,000 from a branch of Lloyds Bank in 1988.
Foley received 14 years and McCann 15 years.
In 2006 ex-boxer Foley received a life sentence for robbing a Surbiton Unwins off-licence while wearing a black curly wig and holding a gun to the cashier’s head.
He and an accomplice fled with £181 cash and £1,000 worth of cigarettes and alcohol.
He was also suspected of slashing a barman’s face in Spain two years earlier
Geraldine has split with Foley, Allec’s father, and McCann is serving a life sentence - with a 21-year minimum - for murdering a 33 year-old man he stabbed to death in 2006.