999 hoaxer locked up as judge takes pity on emergency services

Michelle Dean, 29, who has a compulsive disorder, had nearly 50 convictions since 2003 for making persistent or public nuisance calls, a court heard.

Prosecutor Michael Smith said a police officer had been scarred for life when Dean twice lunged at him with a razor when he investigated reports of hoax 999 calls being made from a phone kiosk in October last year.

Mr Smith said Dean had been sentenced to 14 days in prison in July after committing further hoax call offences.

But at 1.23am on July 21, a week after she had been released, emergency services received 34 calls, with nobody speaking at the end of the phone.

Police went to a kiosk and arrested the defendant. She was released on bail, but on August 17 she was again arrested after making two more silent calls.

Her solicitor, Alistair Boteman, said Dean had a compulsive disorder and psychiatrists thought it might be Asperger's syndrome.

Judge Peter Benson, sentencing her at Bradford Crown Court on Tuesday, told her: "You present a very sad case and I have sympathy. The time has come for the public services to have some respite from you by you being locked up."