On the lash

By Megan Lane and Tomiko Newson BBC News

The days of women sipping a gin and bitter lemon in the pub while the men knocked back pints are long gone. Women are drinking more, and getting violent with it.

Kirsten Maile is bright, attractive and eloquent. She wants to study to be an underwater diving photographer. She is also on probation for ABH - actual bodily harm - after she rammed a bottle into a girl's face.

Nor is it the first time that she has lashed out while drunk. She has twice been charged with common assault, and claims to have "wrapped a girl's ponytail around my hand and smashed her face against a basin".

Kirsten has now sought help

"It doesn't seem that big a deal to me. You see it on the TV, on the streets, loads of fights. Every time I have ever hit someone, I've been drunk. It's easier to lash out, harder to hold on."

She knows that it may just be a matter of time before she loses her rag again. And if she gets caught, she'll go to prison.

Dr Jon Cole, of Liverpool University's School of Psychology, says that while alcohol doesn't make people more aggressive, it stops us making sensible choices: "You make the easiest choice, which is often aggression."

VIOLENT WOMEN SURVEY 9% physically attacked by woman who seems drunk 41% seen woman who seems drunk attack someone else 60% say number of women getting drunk and aggressive is higher than five years ago 31% say it's about the same ICM surveyed 1,129 people aged 18-34

In a survey for BBC Three's Bashing Booze Birds, almost one in 10 people aged 18 to 34 say they have been physically attacked by a drunk woman. And 41% say they have seen a woman who appears to be drunk attack someone else.

Kirsten knows alcohol triggers her short fuse, but believes there are other factors.

"I grew up watching people around me using alcohol as an escape route. There was aggression in the house; my father and his girlfriend physically fighting, constantly arguing. Me and my father, me and my mother arguing down the phone. One big argument."

Kirsten has now sought help for her problems with alcohol and aggression.