A WOMAN who threatened to kill a doctor has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Sheila Diane Jones, 49, wrote letters to him saying that once her pet cat died, she would kill him.

Jones, of Princess Avenue, Buckley, admitted threatening to kill Dr Robert Poole between March last year and July 15 this year.

Jones, who had spent three weeks in custody, was told she could return home to her dogs and cats under a three-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.

District Judge Andrew Shaw said Jones was genuinely ill, otherwise the case could have been sent to the crown court for sentence.

The judge made a restraining order under which she must never approach Dr Poole, or go within 200 metres of the Pwllglas community mental health centre in Mold or Wrexham Maelor hospital, unless she genuinely needs treatment in A and E or is referred there by the NHS.

Flintshire magistrates’ court in Mold was told the doctor was particularly worried by the last threat made this summer because he felt her personality problem meant she may feel she had a justifiable reason for carrying out the threat.

In March last year she wrote a letter in which she threatened to “get” the doctor and said it would be so easy once her cat had died.

Then earlier this month she said she would “do life, it is worth it”.

All she had in her life was her cat, and once the cat was dead she would kill him, she said.

She added: “I will not care about anything. I will end your sad life before I go.”

She later said she had only met Dr Poole three or four times but hated him because she blamed him for discharging her.

Phillip Marshall-Thomas, defending, said she had not intended to carry out the threats.

She had not appreciated the seriousness of what she was doing, he said.