Joanne Healey rang the landline at his friends’ house 59 times in two hours
A woman has been convicted of harassment after plaguing her husband with requests to come home from watching football and hounding her friends about his whereabouts.
Joanne Healey, 59, repeatedly called her spouse of 37 years, Steve, on his mobile as he was watching Chelsea play Manchester United on television, a court was told.
When the former aerospace worker, 60, eventually refused to take her calls, Healey rang his friends John and Debbie Ashworth, leading to an argument during which she called them “paedophiles.”
He went home when the match finished but his wife was later interviewed by police over the calls to the Ashworths’ home in Merseyside. It emerged that she had been drinking heavily at the time of the incident.
In the days leading up to the football match, she was said to have been abusive to Mrs Ashworth over text messages, social media and calls. Mrs Ashworth blocked her but she began to receive numerous unwanted phone calls to her landline. On one occasion Mrs Healey was said to have phoned the house phone 59 times in the space of two hours.
At Wirral magistrates’ court Healey pleaded guilty to harassment and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and fined £80. She must attend 20 days of rehabilitative activity with the probation service and pay £234 in costs and victim surcharge. A request for a restraining order made on behalf of Mrs Ashworth was rejected.
Healey, from Rock Ferry, had no previous convictions. Her lawyer Rebecca Boswell said: “Although she likes a drink she is not dependent on alcohol. But she accepts that maybe when she has had a drink, maybe what she has bottled up comes out.
“She has gone her whole life without coming before the court. I do not think this is where she envisaged herself being. She is currently undergoing further assessment in relation to arthritis, she is having X-rays on her hips and back and also blood tests.
”This is one occasion of telephone calls. This is someone who has come to court for the first time and is never to come back.”
Sentencing, JP Mary Garvey told Healey: “It is unfortunate that you are in court today. The calls were persistent and prolonged but we are not going to place a restraining order on you because of the passage of time. It is over eight months and there have been no further incidents.
“But it is a warning to you and a lesson to you and we hope that we do not see you before these courts again.”
Credits: The Times UK
