Nuisance 999 caller in Leigh Park banned from having a mobile phone for 3 months

For years Louise Hathaway has plagued call handlers in Hampshire as she gets drunk, calls and mumbles bizarre phrases including ‘I love you’.

Any paramedics or police who have the misfortune to attend her home are subjected to a tirade of abuse, with most recently a police officer spat at.

The 47-year-old, of Hampage Green, Leigh Park, has previously been handed suspended sentences and a criminal behaviour order banning her from the calls.

Now judge William Ashworth at Portsmouth Crown Court has handed her a single lifeline – deferring sentence until October 30.

This will mark exactly a year since she drunkenly called the emergency services 28 times in a single day.

Lockdown delayed her sentencing earlier this year but judge Ashworth said he was pleased she had not offended since December.

Judge Ashworth ordered she must not have a mobile phone in the meantime or commit any crime, and she must write a letter explaining her understanding of the effect of her actions.

Hathaway must also tell the judge what steps she has taken to get mental health treatment.

Addressing Hathaway, the judge said: ‘You have appeared sober before me, somebody who’s not been arrested for or convicted for an offence since your arrest on December 13 last year.

‘But before that you have persistent history of breaching orders and being given sentences of custody, suspended terms of custody, and you’ve chosen to continue to vent your anger in abusive, threatening terms to emergency workers, to staff to the control centre, to ambulance technicians, police officers – spitting at them – and there’s absolutely no doubt that a sentence of imprisonment is fully justified in your case.

‘However I have to deal with what is before me, which is because of the pandemic and because of your regulating of your own behaviour, I’m now persuaded, with a significant gap in your behaviour (to defer sentence).’

Richard Onslow, for Hathaway, told the court on Tuesday ‘it’s clear that the defendant has some mental health problems’.

SEE MORE: Hampshire police control room use pen and paper as part of £39m 999 system collapses

Previously outlining the case, prosecutor Gavin Pottinger said: ‘She would ring up, either there would be quite incoherent mumbling or things such as “I love you” being said and sometimes there were a large number of calls on a single day.

‘And of course the real difficulty being whilst she’s making those calls other genuine calls are being delayed.’

Hathaway admitted three breaches of her criminal behaviour order, and breaching two suspended jail terms imposed in March 8 and May 31 last year for a total of 28 breaches of her behaviour order.

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