WOMEN prisoners will have a neighbour from hell for company after a district judge jailed her for three months.

Abigail Alexander insisted that she was within hours of leaving York to live in Helmsley at a special sitting at York County Court.

But police had found her hiding in a York council flat occupied by a man aged 76, despite being banned from entering any council property in the city.

It was the second time she had breached the anti-social behaviour injunction imposed less than three weeks previously.

District Judge Karen Woodhead jailed Alexander, 40, of no fixed address, for three months. She admitted breaching the injunction.

"This is completely unacceptable as well you know," the judge told Alexander. "I hope this sends the message loud and clear that this behaviour will not be tolerated."

Alexander cried out: "I don't think it's fair. I didn't have any representation. I didn't do anything," as police officers took her away.

At the start of the unscheduled hearing, the judge had asked Alexander if she wanted to have a solicitor. Alexander said she did not.

City of York Council got the injunction on May 8 after it had given numerous warnings and action against tenants who had allowed her to stay with them and cause a nuisance to other residents. She had been found staying at 22 council properties after she was evicted from her own home for antisocial behaviour.

Documents before the county court revealed that one of the places where she had caused trouble was the first-floor flat in Pickering House, March Street, where police arrested her at 2.30pm on Wednesday.

She told District Judge Woodhead that she had been collecting her bag from an elderly relative who had stood by her during previous prison terms.

"I am leaving York today," she said. "I have got somewhere out of York."

She gave an address in Helmsley, where, she said, the occupier was a friend who had agreed she could stay with him. She claimed she had only been in the first-floor flat for a few minutes before the police arrived. The judge also made her serve a 28-day prison sentence suspended on May 16 for being in a council property in Wains Road.