Gas sniffer trashed dad's home

Elizabeth White (20), of Ramsey Park, Macosquin, rampaged through her father’s home on June 2 and at Coleraine Magistrates Court, where she appeared via video link from Hydebank Prison, she was jailed for four months.

A prosecutor told the court last Monday that police received a report the defendant was wrecking her father’s house and the kitchen was “completely thrashed”.

She broke crockery and also smashed a TV in the living room and pulled over a cabinet and book shelves.

When police arrived they found White inhaling gas from a can in a bedroom.

She told police she had been sniffing gas and was angry her father had not come back to collect her and she wrecked the house.

Thecourt also heard White had waged, what District Judge Liam McNally described as a “campaign of terror,” against a neighbour.

On April 9 the neighbour said the defendant came to her front door before grabbing her by the hair and throwing her into the hall causing injury to her hand and causing damage to ornaments and a picture

The next day White was in the street shouting: “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to rip your hair out”.

On May 10 White grabbed the neighbour by the hair before pulling her into a garden and punched her before a member of the public stepped in before White appeared a short time later with a brush shaft.

The injured woman received bite marks along with cuts and scrapes and hair had been pulled from her head.

Defence lawyer Derwin Harvey said White had been in care since the age of four and had been in 15 different establishments and she had mental health difficulties before she moved into “a large housing estate”.

He said she became a “target” because of her mental health difficulties and a car was stolen and her home broken into when a memory stick containing childhood photos was stolen.

Mr Harvey said White was introduced to illicit drugs and gas when she moved to Macosquin and had been sniffing “10-15” cans of lighter gas a day and was “out of control”.

He said she got her dad a new 40 inch tv as compensation for the damage she caused to his home.