A WOMAN has been jailed because she refuses to stop going to the York home of her former partner alone.

Joan Leslie Kielty, 67, formerly of the United States, was given a chance to keep her freedom at York Magistrates Court after she admitted harassing the man and putting him in fear of violence between October 17, 2021, and June 29 this year, assaulting him and assaulting a police emergency worker.

District judge Adrian Lower said normally he would send someone who committed the kind of offence she did to jail. Instead, because of her health and her guilty pleas, he suspended a 16-week prison sentence for 12 months and made a five-year restraining order banning her from contacting her ex-boyfriend or going to his address.

He heard that she had a drink problem and was likely to return to the United States.

But six days later, Kielty went to her former partner’s address.

The 67-year-old, who gave an address as a Buddhist meditation centre near Pocklington, pleaded guilty to breaching the order.

At Bradford Magistrates Court, she was ordered to serve the 16-week sentence and four weeks was added for the new offence, making a total of 20 weeks.

The court said she had a “flagrant disregard for court orders”.