Nurse given extra jail sentence for ‘gun gesture’ to witness
ANURSE who intimidated a key witness in an arson case by making a ‘gun gesture’ with her hand has been given an extra jail sentence.
Patricia Pemberton also accused the witness of being a ‘vindictive b**** and a grass’ before scratching derogatory remarks on the boot of her Vauxhall Zafira and bonnet of her Land Rover Discovery, a court heard.
The 57-year-old defendant was arrested in connection with an arson at a block of flats on Regent Street in Haslingden on February 1, 2017.
She later pleaded guilty to arson and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered and was jailed for two years.
Prosecutor Keith Sutton told the court that following her arrest Pemberton repeatedly intimidated the woman who was to be a witness at a trial.
The court was told that her evidence was ‘central to the case’ and she wrote a statement to police and provided a mobile phone video recording.
Mr Sutton said on February 28 Mrs Robinson was at her aunt’s house when the woman walked past and ‘formed a gun shape with her right hand’. She then started ‘waving it about as if to fire’ and shouting the victim’s name and the word ‘bang’.
The court heard that on March 24 Pemberton then posted a letter to her in response to her police statement which also contained ‘unpleasant comments of a personal nature’.
Pemberton also sat outside her aunt’s house ‘waving both hands around’ and calling her a ‘ vindictive b**** and a grass’.
Mrs Robinson was later woken at 2am on March 30 to find that Pemberton had scratched derogatory remarks on her two cars.
Mr Sutton said the victim was ‘extremely frightened’ and later ‘expressed regret at providing her original statement’.
When Pemberton was arrested she told police that she wanted to ‘explain to the witness that she had got a lot of information wrong’.
Pemberton, of Huncoat, pleaded guilty to intimidation and was given a 12-month prison sentence, to run concurrently with her arson sentence, and a restraining order.
Mark Stuart, defending, said she was in a ‘ very dark place’ and drinking excessively and that being in prison has ‘undoubtedly been to her benefit’.
Recorder Simon Medland QC said: “This is the sort of case where if the defendant had been thinking straighter earlier on then she would have pleaded earlier on.”
Pemberton failed to appear when she was originally due to be sentenced over the arson phoning the owner of the block of flats to tell him she was ‘going on the run’.