The incident occurred in October 2022 after Healey fell out with Mrs Ashworth, with whom she had been friends with for 30 years, over her drinking habits.
Abusive messages
In the days leading up to the football match, the court heard, Healey sent abusive texts and social media messages to Ashworth.
She blocked Healey’s number on her mobile but then began receiving numerous unwanted phone calls to her landline.
On one occasion she was said to have phoned the house phone 59 times in the space of two hours.
In a statement Ashworth told police: “On October 22 last year Healey was ringing constantly. I was at home with my husband John, my son and also her husband, Steve Healey. We were all watching a football match on the TV.
‘’Healey had his mobile phone with him but it kept ringing. She was asking him where he was and when he would be home and demanded that he bring the dog back.
“Steve said that he would be home soon and will bring the dog back soon but he stopped answering his phone and she started ringing my landline instead.”
Ashworth said she told the drunken woman to leave her alone and to stop calling.
‘We left the receiver off the hook’
“Her reaction was drunken abuse, shouting and swearing at me, calling me and my husband ‘paedophiles’ and calling me a ‘slag’”, she added.
“In the end, we just left the receiver off the hook and put the volume up on the TV so we could not hear her shouting down the phone.”
Ashworth later contacted police to report the harassment.
At Wirral Magistrates Court, Lionel Cope, prosecuting, said: “[Healey] said the reason that she was ringing was that her husband had the dog…
“She said she didn’t want her husband but the dog.
“She said that when she rang they just kept putting the phone down on her which annoyed her.”
Defendant ‘not dependent on alcohol’
Her lawyer Rebecca Boswell said: “Although she likes a drink, she is not dependent on alcohol. But she accepts that maybe when she has had a drink, maybe what she has bottled up comes out.”
Sentencing, Healy JP Mary Garvey said: “It is unfortunate that you are in court today. The calls were persistent and prolonged but we are not going to place a restraining order on you because of the passage of time, it is over eight months and there have been no further incidents.”
Healey, who had been drinking heavily at the time, pleaded guilty to harassment and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and fined £80 ($166 NZD).
She must attend 20 days of rehabilitative activity with the probation service and pay £234 ($487 NZD) in costs and victim surcharge.
A request for a restraining order made on behalf of Ashworth was rejected.
