A Milford woman who drunkenly locked herself out, and then smashed the glass of her own door to get in, has appeared in court for wasting police time, after falsely claiming someone else had caused the damage.

Thirty-seven-year-old Leanne Thomas, of Meyler Crescent, appeared at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court on Tuesday to plead guilty to a charge of causing wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making a false report to show that an offence had been committed.

Prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard-Jones told the court police received a phone call shortly before 11.30 pm on November 19, from a person living a few doors down from Miss Thomas, who stated that they’d heard glass being smashed.

When police officers arrived at the street, they found Miss Thomas sitting on the stairs inside her premises with her neighbour, and could see that the front glass panel of the door had been smashed.

“The defendant told officers that she’d been inside the property and heard banging and was frightened so she stayed upstairs, then she heard the smash.

“It looked like there had been attempted burglary. In a statement she reiterated this to police and said that she had CCTV on the front of her house and would check this and download it for them to see the following day, to see if it had captured the incident on camera. Police conducted a search of the area.

“The following morning Miss Thomas admitted to police that it was her that smashed the glass, as she had locked herself out drunk and was trying to get back in.

“She said that she was very embarrassed for what she’d done and was sorry for wasting police time.

“She said that she was scared when she saw the police arrive as she and her neighbour hadn’t called them, so she panicked and made a false claim,” he added.

Miss Thomas’s solicitor told the court that she felt thoroughly ashamed of what she’d done the next morning and came clean straight away. If she had not been drinking then she would not have considered such a ploy, and gotten herself into such a ridiculous incident.

Miss Thomas had not drunk since the incident the court heard, as it had been a real wake-up call for her.

Magistrates fined her £80 for the offence and ordered her to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a £30 victim surcharge.