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Prison threat to ASBO OAP
7:00pm Thursday 13th July 2006
By Sally Henfield »
A PENSIONER who broke an Anti-Social Behaviour Order six times in a year has been told to seek help over her drinking if she wants to avoid jail.
Sandra Dobson, of Whalley Road, Great Harwood, was given the order in January last year to try and curb her drunken behaviour.
It banned her from being drunk in public, entering off-licenses and pubs and remaining on property when she had been asked to leave.
On May 15 this year she was given a £100 fine for breaking the conditions of her order after gulping down whisky and wine in a Blackburn Chinese restaurant.
At the time her defence claimed she had fallen off the wagon after almost 15 months of sobriety.
The 60-year-old's catalogue of consequent breaches then continued the day after she received the fine.
Accrington magistrates were told yesterday of a further five incidents involving drunken behaviour.
l May 17, 2006 Dobson drank a quarter bottle of brandy in a taxi and spent an hour trawling the streets because she couldn't remember where she lived. The driver eventually took her to the police
station.
l May 25, 2006 Police were called to a house on Devonshire Drive, Clayton-le-Moors, after Dobson refused to leave. The pensioner was being held up by a friend and officers described her as being
barely awake.'
l May 26, 2007 Only a few hours after being released from the police station, Dobson was arrested again for refusing to leave Clayton Clinic. A nurse called officers for assistance after Dobson
locked herself in the toilet.
l June 2, 2006 Arrested again for being drunk at Delph Road, Great Harwood.
l June 5, 2006 Dobson was arrested for a fifth time after obstructing vehicles in Mill Lane, Great Harwood. Officers found her drunk and lying on the floor with her legs in the road.
Dobson pleaded guilty to all of the breaches of the order.
Gareth Price, defending, called Dobson a chronic alcoholic' and added: "She is at risk of appearing before the court week in week out."
He said that problems at home, including her former partner often barring her from her own house, were making Dobson's drinking worse.
Dobson was given a six month probation order, which included a supervision order.
Magistrates told Dobson they understood she found it difficult to comply with her ASBO but that if she didn't she would eventually be sent to prison.
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