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Hot-tempered farmer Margaret Wooliscroft breached her Asbo by driving straight at a police car with her headlights on full beam.

The incident happened after the 64-year-old spotted a civilian investigation officer visiting one of her neighbours in Brindley Ford to take a witness statement.

Eyeing him suspiciously, she became aggressive and started shouting abuse about the other residents, claiming they were ‘spongers’ and were ‘lighting fires’.

The officer, Matthew Grayson, tried to calm her down and then went inside the neighbouring property in Bull Lane.

Wooliscroft was sitting in her Fiat Ducato when he emerged around 50 minutes later and returned to his unmarked police car to update his notes.

The farmer would later claim she only switched on the headlights to search for her pet lamb Alfie, saying he had trotted out of her property and into the country lane.

But giving evidence at her trial at North Staffordshire Justice Centre , Mr Grayson recalled feeling ‘dazed’ as Wooliscroft drove the van at speed towards him.

He told magistrates: “It stopped just before the front bumper, causing me to be alarmed as I believed she was going to hit the car.”

(Image: Google Images)

He alerted other officers, who arrived to arrest the farmer for breaching her anti-social behaviour order, which had been imposed for an indefinite period in 2011.

But as DC Claire Brooker approached her van, the defendant got out and resisted arrest, swearing and shouting as she tried to handcuff her. Wooliscroft’s trousers fell down in all the commotion and the officer pulled them back up.

DC Brooker said: “She immediately started screaming that she hadn’t done anything. She kept on saying ‘I wasn’t in public, I was on my yard’.”

By this time, Wooliscroft’s relatives had come out to see what was happening. She complained of being in pain from the handcuffs. “They were hurting me so badly,” she later recalled, claiming the officer had ‘pranced’ on her.

Police radioed for back-up and the defendant was finally arrested after trying to drive off.

Wooliscroft, of Bull Lane, pleaded not guilty to breaching the Asbo and obstructing an officer on January 16, 2019. She also denied three charges of using a vehicle without insurance. She was found guilty on all counts following this week’s trial.

Prosecutor John Dove said the Asbo contained one condition. He added: “That was not to shout, swear or use abusive language or insulting or threatening behaviour, directed at any person in Bull Lane.”

In her defence, Wooliscroft claimed she couldn’t have breached it as she was on her own property at the time, although the officers all placed her in the road.

Wooliscroft said she had simply spoken to Mr Grayson as he looked ‘lost’. She denied driving at his vehicle, saying she had put on the lights to look for her escaped lamb.

The pet had become accustomed to going for walks with the family dog and she feared he would head down the road on his own. She said: “I saw Alfie coming down the steps. There was no way he was going to run over Alfie.”

Finding her guilty, Jo Fox, chairman of the bench, described Wooliscroft’s evidence as ‘inconsistent, confused and unsubstantiated’.

She adjourned sentencing so a report could be prepared, telling the defendant: “It will be an ‘all options’ report.”

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