A nuisance caller who cost the emergency services nearly half a million pounds in wasted resources has been jailed.

Sharna Dixon, of Richmond Street, Sheerness, made more than 700 calls and, on one occasion, broke a police officer’s wrist while he attended an unnecessary call-out.

The 27-year-old who admitted one count of malicious communications and was found guilty of one count of grievous bodily harm without intent, was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday.

On September 27 last year, at about 7pm, Dixon called the police to the canal, off Halfway Road, in Sheerness, saying she was suicidal. When patrols found her, one of them ended up being pushed into the water by Dixon. He suffered a broken wrist, which required surgery, and grazing, the court heard.

Between November 2017 and February 2020, Dixon repeatedly called the emergency services. Despite numerous offers of advice and support, she continued to make the nuisance calls.

Of these, 473 were made to the ambulance service, between January 2019 and February 2020, and are believed to have cost the NHS £93,654.

Between those dates, Dixon also called police 162 times and, since October 2018, the coastguard had responded to 67 call outs involving Dixon, which is approximately one a week.

Speaking at an earlier hearing, last Tuesday, prosecutor John Crawford said Dixon was responsible for 35% of all call outs, during that time, of the Sheppey coastguard rescue teams and, up until January 2020, the total cost for the coastguard alone had been £350,000.

The court also heard Dixon attended Medway Maritime Hospital’s A&E department 185 times in 2019 and 125 of those were in an ambulance. This means, on average, she was arriving at the hospital by ambulance once every three days.

It is not known exactly how much Dixon’s call outs have cost Kent Police but, the court heard, there had been “hundreds of police hours” spent with her “from front-line services and within the community”, so the cost would be “in the hundreds of thousands of pounds”.

Judge Julian Smith jailed Dixon for 15 months for the assault charge, three months consecutive for the malicious communications charge, plus 180 days for breaching a suspended sentence, which related to a charge in 2019 for possession of a knife in a public place.

He said: “I don’t know all of the calls nor do I know all of the details, but what is apparent is that you have made so many calls that the impact on individual services has been noted and is significant.”

“This behaviour is not acceptable and diverts crews and officers away from genuine people who may critically require help. I hope Dixon’s sentence reinforces this message.”

Dixon had been charged with the malicious communications offence after a search for her was launched in Margate on February 15 this year.

Defending, Emin Kandola, said Dixon had a “troubled” childhood, which involved spending years in foster care. She went on to enrol into university and started studying nursing at the University of Greenwich. Then, when she was 19 and unaware she was pregnant, she gave birth to a stillborn baby on a beach. “It’s at that point where she started offending alongside self-harming,” Ms Kandola said.

About the officer who broke his wrist, Ms Kandola added: “She became quite startled when other officers came over to her, running towards her, and, in her words, she freaked out, and whilst she tried to stand back she swung her arm out and the officer fell back. As he fell, she did attempt to assist in trying to pull him out of the water but was arrested by the other officers. She feels so guilty for what’s happened to the officer.”

Investigating officer, DC Jacqueline Mennie, said: “Despite Dixon’s behaviour, Kent Police and several local agencies attempted to help her numerous times, however she always refused to engage and continued to maliciously call the emergency services.

“This behaviour is not acceptable and diverts crews and officers away from genuine people who may critically require help. I hope Dixon’s sentence reinforces this message.”

Another court hearing will be held in July to decide whether Dixon should be made the subject of a two-year criminal behaviour order prohibiting contact to emergency services unless in a “genuine emergency”.

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