A WOMAN shouted at police with a knife in her hand because she did not want her husband arrested.

Police were called to the small Swindon flat shared by Amanda Harris and her husband and daughter on September 19 last year after reports of an argument.

When they arrived, 53-year-old Harris and the man shouted out the window at the officers to leave.

The police officers were let in by another resident, prosecutor Keith Ballinger told Swindon Magistrates’ Court this week.

“As they’re going upstairs they’ve heard her say to her partner ‘You won’t get nicked, I will’,” he said.

When the officers reached the couple’s flat the door was open and they saw Harris standing holding a knife pointed upwards. She was shouting at the officers.

One of the constables pressed the panic button on their radio and Harris was detained using PAVA spray. She apologised when she was later interviewed at the police station.

Gordon Hotson, mitigating, said his client made no attempt to assault the police officers and she deeply regretted coming out of the room with the knife.

He said: “She knows that she shouldn’t have done that but at the time she just really wasn’t thinking through the consequences of having done that. She just didn’t want her partner to be the one who would be blamed for the argument and get arrested.”

At the time, the family were living in a cramped flat and Harris was struggling with alcohol. Since the incident she had cut back on her drinking and the couple had moved to a larger flat.

Harris, of Sanford Street, Swindon, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to affray. She had no previous convictions.

Magistrates fined her £245, imposed an 18 month community order with 25 rehabilitation activity requirement days and ordered she pay £180 in costs and surcharge.