A burglar spared prison because she is undergoing gender transition, was jailed the next day after she assaulted a police officer and caused a disturbance at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary.

Rayla Milne committed the offences just hours after a district judge in the city was told of how she had broken into Morton Manor community centre on Wigton Road, searching offices there and causing £450 worth of damage.

At the city’s Rickergate Magistrates’ Court, District Judge Gerald Chalk drew back from jailing her.

Milne’s defence lawyer John Smith had earlier outlined how the 42-year-old defendant is going through gender transition and had been victimised as a result, with youths regularly verbally abusing her.

Yet shortly after she walked free from the court, Milne was in more trouble.

At the same court, the day after she was released from custody, she pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer and admitted causing a nuisance or a disturbance at the Cumberland Infirmary without reasonable excuse.

She also refused to leave the hospital when asked to do so by a member of staff.

After hearing details of the case, magistrates imposed a total of 104 days in prison.

Two weeks of this was for the assault on the officer, while the remainder was an activation of the 90-day sentence which had earlier been imposed but suspended by District Judge Chalk.

Magistrates said the jail term was justified because of the defendant’s offending history and because she had only just been made subject to a suspended sentence.

They noted also that Milne was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the latest offences.

In the previous day’s hearing, the court heard that Milne plans to leave her home in Glasgow and start a new life in north Cumbria.

Police found the defendant in the Wigton Road community centre after the alarm sounded at 3am on August 11. A door panel had been smashed and there had been an untidy search of some of the building’s offices.

Defence lawyer John Smith said that Milne’s past offending had been fuelled in part by confusion over her gender but she now had a place at gender clinic and this had helped to calm her down.

Mr Smith had said: “People have not always reacted in a pleasant way towards her,” said Mr Smith. He described how she was subjected to systematic abuse in her home city. Neighbours watched out for when she was about to leave her apartment. She was then abused by youths and other people.

On the night of the burglary, Milne had been drunk.

District Judge Chalk told her the burglary deserved jail but added: “I accept that gender transition is a difficult time for anyone.

"It must be extremely difficult for you at present if you are being harangued by other people. If I sent you to prison at the present time it would be extremely difficult.”