A HOMELESS woman who pestered a woman who had tried to help her has been given a community order.

Melanie Ibbotson, prosecuting, said the victim had allowed Suzanne Marie Young, 51, to stay at her home for a time, but later received 37 text messages including insults from her.

The victim was worried because Young knew where she lived.

In September, Young went to the Acomb home of a woman she was forbidden to contact under a restraining order.

She threw items out of the window and refused several times to open the door to police when they went to deal with her.

After she eventually let them in and she kicked a police officer but didn't injure them.

Young's solicitor Lee-Anne Robins-Hicks said the second woman was vacating the premises and wanted Young to live there as Young had just lost her accommodation .

But the 51-year-old was not allowed to go to the address under the restraining order.

Young, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty sending nuisance texts on June 4, breaching the restraining order, assaulting a police officer and a public order offence in Bull Lane unconnected to the other offences.

York magistrates gave her an 18-month community order with 30 days' rehabilitative activities and 100 hours' unpaid work.

She was made subject to a second restraining order. This one protects the victim who received the abusive texts and lasts for 12 months.

Young was also ordered to pay £80 compensation to the police officer, £85 prosecution costs and a £95 statutory surcharge.

Mrs Robins-Hicks said Young was an alcoholic and her offences were committed when her personal circumstances deteriorated.

When she sent the text messages, she was living next door to the victim.

She had been drunk and frustrated at the time, but had had no intention of harming the victim.

Ms Ibbotson said on June 28, two members of the public called out police because she was shouting and swearing in the early hours outside a block of flats in Bull Lane.

Mrs Robins-Hicks said Young had just been thrown out of the premises.