A TEENAGE shop assistant was hit over the head with a vase in a brutal attack in a Harwood flower shop.

The 19-year-old assistant was attacked by a woman who stormed into the Flowers for all Occasions store in Lea Gate at the weekend.

After an argument the attacker picked up a glass vase and smashed it over the teenager's head. The girl was then hit again with a ceramic vase as she lay on the floor. The attacker then ransacked her way through the premises as the assistant ran to raise the alarm at a neighbouring shop.

The attacker drove away from the scene in a car which had been parked outside the store during the attack. Nothing is believed to have been stolen.

The shop assistant was taken semi conscious to Bolton Royal Infirmary. She was released after 14 stitches were inserted in a wound to her eyebrow and a second injury on the back of her head. A spokesman at the flower shop today said the teenager was "badly shaken."

He said he could not comment on suggestions that a dispute with another firm was at the centre of the incident.

A woman has been interviewed by detectives probing the attack.

She has been released on police bail.

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