Published at 08:11, Friday, 24 February 2012

A young Carlisle mum “exploded with rage” when prison officers who were trying to persuade her boyfriend to come down off a roof asked her not to interfere.

At Carlisle Crown Court, a judge heard how 27-year-old Jade Morris had lashed out at the Haverigg Prison staff in south Cumbria, kicking one on the shins and spitting at another.

That outburst and two thefts were enough to persuade Judge Peter Hughes QC that Morris, of Raffles Avenue, on the Raffles estate, should be jailed.

Gerard Rogerson, prosecuting, described how Morris had been visiting her boyfriend at the jail on June 16 last year when he ran away and clambered onto a roof.

The officers were trying to persuade him to come down and because they felt Morris’s presence was inflaming the situation they asked her to leave, said Mr Rogerson.

She became angry and was told she would be thrown out and it was then that she became angry, said the prosecutor. He said: “She exploded with rage, punched out at the staff and she was restrained.”

She then kicked out, hitting an officer’s shin and spat, missing one officer but catching another.

At an earlier hearing, Morris admitted common assault on the officer, threatening behaviour, and two offences of theft, one from a newsagents in Currock and another from the Homebase store in Carlisle when she stole a kettle.

Keith Thomas, defending, pleaded with the judge to not jail her for the sake of her two children, one aged just 14 months.

“This is a young woman for whom drugs have been a real problem in the past,” said the barrister, pointing out that Morris had been drug free during the five weeks she had spent on remand in prison.

“I submit that it is in the public interest to give her what will be a final chance,” added Mr Thomas.

But Judge Peter Hughes QC pointed out that Morris had been given the same warning when she was in court in August of last year and only her family and her apparent repentance had saved her from an immediate jail term then.

He jailed her for six-and-a-half months.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk