A WOMAN has been spared jail after threatening to burn down the home of a council officer and twice forcing the probation service to vacate its York offices.

Sarah Allan was given a suspended prison sentence in June for a spate of antisocial behaviour at public sector and other buildings in the city.

She continued to commit offences, including vandalising a parked car in a bid to force police to arrest her, and after she failed to attend court, was arrested on a warrant and sent back to court for York magistrates to decide if she should be made to serve the 12-week prison term passed in June.

But York magistrates let her keep her freedom, just as a district judge had at Leeds Magistrates Court in November when Allan appeared for an assault committed while on the suspended sentence.

The York bench put her on a 16-week curfew from 7pm to 7am every day at her mother's home. The 12-week prison sentence remains suspended for two years from November.

Allan's solicitor Mark Thompson said she needed help from the probation service.

"She is a very desperate individual," he said, adding that there was a long standing history of physical and mental abuse.

"She has these huge complexities about her behaviour and everything else going on in her life."

Allan, 22, of Kempton Close, Acomb, pleaded guilty to criminal damage to a parked car on December 10, a public offence committed at Halfords in York on 12.45pm on December 11 and criminal damage to a door at Fulford Road Police Station later the same day.

Because the offences were committed during the suspended period of the June sentence, York magistrates had to decide whether to make her serve it.

Sarah Marsh, prosecuting, said Allan called police at 3.35am on December 10, saying she was having a breakdown and wanted to kill herself. She said she was homeless and asked them to take her into custody so she could have a bed for the night.

They declined, so she broke a car's windscreen wiper, and they arrested her for criminal damage.

The offences for which she received the suspended sentence included threats to commit criminal damage made at West Offices, two charges of vandalising fire alarms at the probation service offices in Lowther Street, York, assaulting two police officers called to deal with her and a public order offence at the Jobcentre in Stonebow.