A WOMAN with a long history of attacking police officers was jailed after she spat at a custody detention officer.

Nicola Jones, 37, had been taken to Newport Central police station following her arrest for abusing and threatening to kill a couple in the city.

Prosecutor Thomas Stanway said officers detained her after she had screamed obscenities at them and wielded a plastic bar last May.

He told Cardiff Crown Court: “The defendant refused to be interviewed after her arrest and she became rude and abusive to a custody detention officer, calling her a bimbo.

READ MORE: Teenager high on drink and drugs tried to rob cyclist at railway station

“She then spat at her through a hatch. The custody detention officer managed to move her face away and put her right palm up.

“If she hadn’t had done so, it would have hit her in face.

“The defendant continue to abuse her and laugh at the officer.”

Jones, of Bacon Place, Newport, pleaded guilty to assaulting an emergency worker and public disorder.

These offences put her in breach of a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, imposed last year.

Cardiff Crown Court heard how that related to threats she made to stab her father with a knife before spitting at police and damaging a patrol car.

Jones has 36 previous convictions for 60 offences with more than a dozen for assaulting emergency workers Gareth Williams, mitigating, told the court how his client had accepted she has a drug problem.

The judge, Recorder Simon Mills, told Jones: “I wish I had a magic wand to make your problems go away but I don’t.

“You were initially arrested when you were carrying what could have been a vacuum cleaner tube and when you had lost control of yourself.

“You then spat at a custody detention officer. It’s bad enough to be spat normally but especially so when people are worried about Covid.

“It will have frightened your victim.

“Emergency workers are entitled to go about doing their jobs without being insulted and spat upon.

“You also have multiple convictions for assaults on police officers.”

Recorder Mills jailed her for 14 months.

After the case, Pam Kelly, Gwent Police’s chief constable, said: “Assaults on police officers and other emergency service workers are completely unacceptable.

“It is important to remember that behind their badge or their uniform, these people are also members of the public.

“Nobody should be assaulted in their place of work and there can be no excuse whatsoever for this kind of behaviour.

“Assaults of any kind will never be tolerated by Gwent Police at any time.”