Hartlepool pageant winner to teach self-defence class during charity coffee morning

Jessica Ingham currently holds the titles Miss Teesside Atlantic 2022 and Miss County Durham International 2022 and studies law at Northumbria University.

But the beauty queen is also a personal trainer and has created her own self-defence class, which she will teach during a coffee morning raising funds for Women’s Aid this weekend.

The session will be an hour long and will take place at the town’s Corporation Club.

Jessica, 23, has said she hopes the all-inclusive event will help make self-defence classes more accessible.

She said: "I think being able to defend yourself and feeling strong helps you become a lot more emotionally independent and helps you become stronger anyway.

"Once I got into sport and started learning kickboxing, it actually increased my confidence quite a lot.

"I think in a world where women have all of their rights and things have changed so much over the past hundred years it’s a bit stereotypical to say girls shouldn’t be able to do this and girls shouldn’t be able to do that.

"I think having those skills makes girls and women feel a lot more able to look after themselves, makes them feel like they don’t need that stereotypical handsome prince on a white horse. “

Jessica, who is currently organising her own pageant, Miss Mindful Beauty, decided to bring the self-defence course to a group setting after teaching it one-on-one to multiple clients.

The programme took six months to develop and proved a success.

"I think learning those skills and having those skills just in case you need them, is a really good way of creating awareness of what people go through when they’re attacked, and how they can recover and build that confidence back up again,” added Jessica.

The coffee morning – which can be attended by making a donation of £3 – will also include an hour’s discussion of domestic violence.

Refreshments will be available and anyone over the age of 13 is welcome to attend.

The event starts at 11am on Saturday, February 19. To find out more, contact Jessica Ingham PT on Facebook.

Support your Mail and become a subscriber today.

Enjoy unlimited access to all of our news and sport, see fewer ads, experience faster load times, test your brain with daily puzzles and get access to exclusive newsletters.

Your support for our journalism means we can continue telling Hartlepool’s stories for generations to come. Click here to subscribe - and click here to get a snapshot of the Mail’s news and sport to your inbox through our email newsletters.