A woman who claimed to have been driven by voices in her head when she made threats to bomb Wick Police Station, is to get medical help.
Joanne Peacher, 46, was said to have stopped taking her medication around the time she made repeated phone calls to the police office, the town’s sheriff court was told yesterday.
Sheriff Andrew Berry impressed on her that the police were duty bound to act on such threats and these had been made when officers were already hard-pressed.
Peacher, 46, admitted causing annoyance and inconvenience to officers when she appeared from custody. She was made subject to a six-month supervision order.
Fiscal David Barclay said that the police received three 999 bomb threats between June 20 and 21. Suspicion fell on Peacher who admitted sending the messages, blaming “the voices” which “got louder when she didn’t take her medication.”
The fiscal said that at the time, officers were dealing with two other major inquiries in Caithness and the bomb threat had put a further strain on their resources.
Mr Barclay continued: “Clearly, given their ominous nature, the messages were being taken seriously and some officers were given the dedicated task of carrying out a search of the police station perimeter.”
When Peacher appeared from custody for sentence, yesterday Sheriff Berry said: “The police can’t assume that because the call was made in the far north of Scotland, the caller probably wouldn’t bomb their police station. It was drawn to my attention that officers were, at the time, dealing with a serious road traffic accident on A9 and a missing person and at the same time having to deal with your disruptive phone calls.”
The sheriff, who saw a background report, noted that Peacher, of 55 Kennedy Terrace, Wick, had convictions for similar behaviour in England.
Peacher was urged to co-operate fully with the doctors and social workers while under supervision.