A young woman repeatedly caught carrying knives has been sent back to prison again - just months after a judge apologised for jailing her for a similar offence.

Cheryl Covington, of Jefferson Road, Sheerness, was sentenced to 16 months after she was found with a 6in blade up her sleeve and an 8in serrated bread knife in her bag in the early hours of September 15.

Maidstone Crown Court heard she was sitting on an emergency exit staircase at the rear of Sittingbourne police station. She had been throwing stones and smashed a window on a Portakabin belonging to Kent Police.

In February this year she was jailed for 12 months for possessing a knife. Again, she had thrown stones, this time damaging police vehicles.

Passing sentence at that hearing, Judge Andrew Patience QC said he was “distressed” at having to send her to prison, but she had to accept that carrying knives in public was dangerous.

At the latest hearing Judge Jeremy Carey said he had no doubt Covington, 22, repeatedly carried knives because she knew she would be arrested.
Her reasons for wanting that, he said, were “unfathomable”.

“There are some cases and some defendants for whom there is no appropriate sentence to identify the causes of their underlying offending, and you are one,” he continued.

Covington, who admitted two offences of having a bladed article and one of criminal damage, had not been found suitable by psychiatrists for a hospital order under the Mental Health Act.

Judge Carey said he therefore had no other option than to jail her.
“I am driven to sentence you to custody even though I know the strong likelihood is it will prevent you from offending only while you are incarcerated,” he told Covington.

He suggested she was a “prime candidate” for therapeutic treatment, both while in custody and on licence.

Tom Stern, defending, said Covington did not have a sinister motive for carrying knives.

“When she feels annoyed or upset she feels she wants to create a situation where she is arrested and placed in an environment that gives her some sense of security.

“In a sense there is a cry for help.”