A WOMAN who tried to hide her boyfriend from police when they called to speak to him about an alleged serious assault has been spared jail.

Emma Parkinson admitted perverting the course of justice as a result of the incident in Hartlepool, although Judge Howard Crowson said it was not the most serious example of such an offence.

Prosecutor Shaun Dryden told Teesside Crown Court that officers called at a property in Lancaster Court, Hartlepool, on November 18 last year and asked Parkinson if she knew where the man was.

She said she did not and had not seen him for days.

Police searched the house and found the wanted man hiding under a bed. Parkinson was arrested and admitted she had helped conceal him as she did not want him arrested.

Stephen Constantine, mitigating, said: “It was always doomed to failure. They were always going to search the property whatever was said.”

Parkinson, 33, of Jesmond Road, Hartlepool, who was said to have expressed regret, was given a 12 month community order by Judge Crowson.