A WOMAN who threatened to slit eight people's throats in the middle of the night has been released from jail so she can get help.

Helen Dianne Casey, 43, waved a seven or eight inch knife and banged on a door in her then home street at 2.30am on April 30, said Brooke Morrison, prosecuting.

A neighbour heard her shout: "Get out here now, I am going to stab you in the jugular, all eight of you."

Casey then walked away from the house, banging three or four times on the neighbour's front window as she did so.

She had been causing an "issue" in the same street earlier that night.

Casey, now of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to carrying a knife in public.

She had been remanded in custody since her arrest and attended York Crown Court via a video link to HMP Low Newton Women's Prison.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, read a psychiatric report on her before passing sentence.

"This lady needs help," he said.

He added that if he passed a prison sentence, at the end of it she would find herself on the street.

"There should be someone for her to turn to and some structure in her life," he said.

He gave her a 12-month community order with 25 days' rehabilitative activities arranged through the probation service.

"It means her immediate release and that she has some assistance," he told the court.

"The probation service is there to help you," he told Casey.

He heard that it was not clear whether she could return to her former accommodation and that she had been held on remand for 117 days, the equivalent of an eight-month prison sentence.

He told her to immediately present herself at a local authority's housing office as homeless so she could be given some form of emergency accommodation.

Casey told the judge: "Thank you very much."

Ms Morrison said Casey caused the disturbance in Kitchener Street, Selby.

The neighbour was asleep when she was awoken by the sound of Casey banging on a nearby door.

She looked out of her window and saw Casey standing in front of her next-door neighbour's house.

Casey was waving the knife and shouting.

After Casey banged on the witness's front window, she walked away shouting and swearing.

Police went to Casey's then home in the same street and arrested her.

She has a few criminal convictions, spread over many years.

The judge asked York Crown Court's liaison and diversion officer about Casey's accommodation before passing sentence.

The liaison and diversion service in magistrates and crown courts identifies and works with vulnerable defendants whose mental health problems are contributing to their offending.