A NORTH Yorkshire police constable broke down in tears as she told a trial how she had become "muddled" over an insurance claim, which she is accused of falsifying.

Scarborough-based Victoria Lacy, 24, told Leeds Crown Court she had been through "a year of hell" over the allegations.

Lacy is accused of trying to obtain £154 by deception from Legal & General Insurance Ltd, on July 19 last year, by making a false claim that a set of golf clubs had been stolen in a burglary, and that she had refunded a colleague who bought a replacement set on his credit card.

Lacy, who denies the charge, said she had not been bothered about claiming for the clubs, which, she said, had been taken at a break-in at the garage of her home in Curlew Drive, Scarborough, in which her mountain bike was stolen.

She accepted she had sent a letter to her insurers with a receipt for £154 - which she had been given by police colleague Andrew Standing - in which she told them she had bought a replacement set of clubs from Snainton Golf Centre.

But PC Standing had paid for them on his credit card.

She said: "That was totally foolish. I was just coming off nights. I can't tell you why I put it - in my head it made sense."

She said she believed her insurers needed an "estimate receipt" for the clubs before they could process her claim. She said she was mainly concerned about being reimbursed for her mountain bike.

She said: "They muddled me up so much, saying that I couldn't claim and then I could claim."

She said that after repeated calls from her insurers she just wanted to have the claim finalised.

During questioning by her counsel David Bradshaw, she broke down in tears saying: "I wouldn't waste my career on this letter. I didn't even want the bloody golf clubs. I'm not gaining anywhere. I have had a year of hell over this. I'm really sorry. I didn't want to cry in here.

"I really wasn't acting dishonestly. If I was acting dishonestly I would have taken the bike they offered me."

Lacy's insurers had earlier offered to pay for the more expensive mountain bike which was stolen from her, though she later bought a cheaper one.

She also told the court how on the day she was arrested she was in "a complete and utter daze".

She had been on duty for a full day and then been called out in the early hours to an incident where a father was holding a baby hostage on Scarborough's Eastfield estate.

Earlier she had told the court how her former housemate Nicola Howarth, who claimed to have heard Lacy planning the alleged fraud, would follow her around at home listening to her phone calls, and had spread rumours about her at work that she was having an affair with a next-door neighbour.

The trial continues.

Updated: 15:45 Tuesday, July 30, 2002