A woman who helped her boyfriend mug a York doctor as he sat reading a book by the River Ouse has been jailed for 19 months.

Paul Roy Edward Barnett, 27, held Dr Philip Kellett by the throat and mouth and threatened to injure him unless he handed over his wallet, Ian Shiels, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

When the York doctor dropped the wallet, Barnett's then girlfriend, Tracey Atkinson, grabbed it, took the money and threw the empty wallet in some bushes. The doctor chased them, but they got away.

Atkinson, 25, pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods. The prosecution accepted the plea and offered no evidence on a charge of robbery.

"It is difficult to imagine how you could be closer to a robbery and yet not stand convicted of that robbery," Judge Gavin Barr Young told Atkinson.

When arrested, Atkinson and Barnett both gave an address in Cheltenham Crescent, Harrogate.

Atkinson admitted breaching a probation order imposed in January and was resentenced on a Harrogate burglary, two charges of deception and assaulting a police officer.

The judge jailed Atkinson for 12 months for the handling, saying he had reduced it substantially after hearing how she had kicked her 11-year anti-depressant habit. He added seven months for the other offences.

For Atkinson, Jim Withyman said she had been on anti-depressants and an alcoholic from the age of 14. After leaving care at the age of 16, she had met Barnett and become involved in repeated crimes. The court heard that after his imprisonment and her remand in custody in June, she had started to turn her life around and got off anti-depressants.