Prison forthreat-plotwomanwho drankanti-freeze

Joanne Ginley

A WOMAN drank anti-freeze and then made claims her former lover had tried to kill her.

Newspaper cuttings were used to create a threatening letter and a man claiming to be Lyn Taylor’s former partner Geoffrey Young made phone calls which inferred Mr Young was trying to harm her.

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In one call, the man who claimed to be Mr Young, said: “Tell her that I am going to kill her before she gets to court....”

Howard Crowson, prosecuting, said Mr Young was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder but it was later proved he had absolutely nothing to do with any of the threats and it was the prosecution’s case that it was actually Taylor who was behind the claims in a bid to frame her former lover.

Although it was a man who made the calls from a telephone kiosk, police investigations placed Taylor nearby when the calls were made.

Leeds Crown Court yesterday heard evidence that Taylor used newspaper cuttings from the Rochdale Observer to create a threatening letter.

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Mr Crowson said Taylor also ingested anti-freeze and claimed Mr Young had tried to kill her. She had taken a large dose that could have killed her, but she made a full recovery.

“She wanted people to believe that Geoffrey Young was the root of her problems. She told paramedics about the death threats when they arrived,” Mr Crowson said.

He said she inquired if it was possible she had been poisoned and said she tearfully told staff: “He’s done this to me.”

Taylor, 53, of Bank Avenue, Morley, Leeds, admitted a charge of intending to pervert the course of justice at an earlier hearing.

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Recorder Paul Kirtley told Taylor: “I consider this to be an extremely serious case of abuse of the public justice system.”

He said she had been devious in the way she had acted and said while she had pleaded guilty he believed she had only done so because of the “overwhelming” evidence against her.

He praised police who had worked on the case.

In mitigation, Helen Hendry said her client was distressed by her actions. She said the series of incidents had taken place over the course of around two weeks in October and November 2008.

She said while on remand her client had become an equality and diversity officer and cards were read out from prisoners thanking her for her help.

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Taylor also faced a number of charges relating to her decision to obtain credit after she had been declared bankrupt in 2002 and two counts of fraud and one of the possession of a false identity document after she opened a bank account in somebody else’s name in 2009.

She was sentenced to three years and three months for perverting the course of justice and for the charges relating to the opening of a bank account in somebody else’s name, which she admitted at previous hearings.

She faced no further penalty for the charges relating to her obtaining credit.