Jailed again: Scarborough woman Nina Smith commits her 166th offence after assaults on police

Nina Smith, 42, was arrested on Christmas Eve. Officers had been called out to reports of a woman assaulting a man on Albion Road, York Crown Court heard.

She was arrested for breaching a criminal-behaviour order, which banned her from drinking in public in the Scarborough area.

Prosecutor Kelly Sherif said that after being escorted to the police vehicle, Smith became violent and told officers: “I’m back in jail for a year.”

One of the officers was struck in the face and she lunged at another constable “as if to head-butt her”.

She told that officer: “I’ll batter you.”

She was taken to Scarborough Police Station where she was placed on cell watch because of her “violent and aggressive” behaviour.

During three hours of observation by two officers, they watched Smith’s “erratic” behaviour lurch from emotional and weepy to downright abusive.

She told officers she could be a “horrible bxxxx”, adding: “If you don’t take these cuffs off me, get in this cell with me and I’ll beat you black and blue.”

When her handcuffs were finally removed, she began flicking toilet paper at the security camera inside the cell before throwing toilet water at the two officers, hitting them in the face.

Smith, who lives in the town centre, admitted breaching a criminal-behaviour order (CBO) and two counts of assaulting a police officer. She appeared for sentence on Friday via video link from a custody suite at Low Newton women’s prison.

The court heard she had 75 previous convictions for 163 offences – eight of them for attacking police officers, dating back to when she was a youth. In February last year she was given a two-year jail sentence for battery and a previous breach of the CBO.

During the hearing, Smith repeatedly threw her hands up in the air in indignation and tried to interrupt court proceedings, but at other times she appeared deeply anxious.

Nick Peacock, mitigating, said Smith had had a problem with alcohol since the age of 13 and that another period in jail would hopefully give her time to “dry out”, but he conceded that her behaviour inside the police station had been “disgraceful”.

She had been recalled to prison until December this year following her arrest.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told Smith: “The civilised people in the neighbourhood where you reside are fed up to the back teeth of your drunken behaviour and (should) not have to put up with it, and the more you do it, the more time you will stay inside.

“It’s a destructive cycle but you are the person who has caused this destruction to yourself.”

Smith was jailed for 18 months. She will serve only half of that sentence behind bars.