A Barry woman who bombarded South Wales Police with more than 950 nuisance emails in a year has been banned from contacting the police save for reporting genuine concerns or emergencies.

Rebecca Miles, aged 31, was given a two-year Criminal Behaviour Order at Cardiff Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The conditions of the order state, she must not:

Contact any emergency service, the 999 or 101 emergency services number, or via email, text or any other method, except in a genuine emergency situation and shall not incite, encourage or instruct other persons to do so.

Miles was also given a 16-week suspended sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of persistently making use of a public communication network to cause annoyance/inconvenience/anxiety.

The court heard, Miles contacted the force's Public Service Centre more than 950 times from May 2018 to June 2019.

PC Helen Kihlberg, of Barry's community safety partnership team, said: "Rebecca Miles' persistent actions wasted valuable time for both officers and call handlers, time which could have been better spent dealing with genuine calls and concerns from the public.

"Our officers conducted numerous welfare checks and attempted to engage with her prior to her arrest.

"Unfortunately, Miles failed to heed the words of advice offered to her and we were left with no option but to prosecute her.

"Criminal Behaviour Orders are used as a last resort after all other efforts to engage with individuals through partner agencies has failed.

"Miles has been offered support and will continue to be offered support.

"Hopefully, the CBO handed to her will afford her the time to reflect on the impact her actions have had on the force and encourage her to accept the support available."