A woman has been jailed after she threatened a security guard at a town centre shop with a needle.

Jade Nicholson was challenged by staff and security at Primark on Regent Street after they suspected her of stealing.

“She is said to have pushed both of those person and in the process of doing so, is to have produced a needle from her bag and threatened to stab them with it,” prosecutor Ben Worthington told Swindon Magistrates’ Court on Friday (September 1).

He said it came after she tried to leave with a bag of goods having only paid for one item.

Nicholson, of Thornford Drive, was jailed for 36 weeks for the offence as well as a slew of others which took place between July 2022 and 2023.

On another occasion, the court heard that a bouncer at The Power Lounge, on Bridge Street, had evicted a person before she got involved and hit the security guard over the head with a bottle.

The incident took place on July 19, 2022, and she was charged with assault by beating.

The 26-year-old protested from the dock, saying it was the only thing she was not guilty of.

In a stormy hearing during which the defendant repeatedly shouted from the dock, objecting to the prosecutor, magistrates had to intervene to tell her to be quiet.

Mr Worthington added on July 1, police had been called by Nicholson’s neighbour after “concerns for her welfare”.

“They think that Miss Nicholson is having a mental health episode, there is concern that she has taken cocaine and heroin from a bad batch.”

Drugs were seized from her and she was then taken to the Accident and Emergency Department at GWH.

Mr Worthington said: “She then seems to have kicked off in the Accident and Emergency Department.

“She spits in the face of one of the doctors which causes police to arrest her again”.

Nicholson was charged with assault of an emergency worker, criminal damage and possession of heroin and cocaine.

On another occasion in December 2022, she was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, a case which has since been dropped.

During the process, she spat in the face of one of the police officers arresting her and spat on the floor of the police van multiple times. She was charged with criminal damage and assaulting an emergency worker.

Sentencing, chair of the bench, Andrew Brown, sentenced Nicholson to a total of 36 weeks in prison.

The sentence comprised of 26 weeks for threatening a person with a blade in the incident at Primark; four weeks consecutive for assaulting the doctor; two weeks consecutive for spitting at the police officer; four weeks consecutive for assaulting the Power lounge bouncer; and two concurrent weeks for each of the assaults of the Primark worker and the security guard.

She was not handed any other additional punishments for the three theft offences, possession of class A drugs, criminal damage and failing to surrender in which she was supposed to appear at Swindon Magistrates Court on March 1.

Nicholson will also have to pay a surcharge of £187 but she was handed no other compensation due to the fact that she will serve a custodial sentence.