Pop star Tulisa loses V Festival assault appeal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-30821887

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Singer Tulisa Contostavlos has lost an appeal against her conviction for assaulting a celebrity blogger at a music festival.

The former X Factor judge, 26, was found guilty of hitting Savvas Morgan at the V Festival in Chelmsford, Essex, in August 2013.

She was ordered to pay £3,020 by Stratford Magistrates' Court last July.

A judge upheld the conviction, saying she had experienced "a lack of self-control" when she struck Mr Morgan.

But her sentence was altered so she did not have to pay £100 compensation to Mr Morgan, and a fine of £200 was changed to a conditional discharge.

Contostavlos will also have to pay an additional £1,500 in appeal costs.

At Snaresbrook Crown Court, Judge David Radford said Contostavlos accepted she became verbally aggressive.

"We find she was not calm, this was a lack of self-control - the reasons, we understand - and for a brief moment, we find that she did strike Mr Morgan, before very speedily the incident was brought to an end," he said.

During her trial, Contostavlos claimed Mr Morgan had a "strange obsession" with her and conducted a "vendetta" against her after a confrontation in a nightclub.

In the same week as her conviction for assault, a trial involving Contostavlos collapsed when a judge at Southwark Crown Court said there were "strong grounds" to believe undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood had lied on the witness stand.

Contostavlos had denied brokering a drugs deal, which had been reported in The Sun on Sunday in 2013.