A WOMAN has been jailed after being found guilty of threatening a transgender victim in Barrow.

Andrea Brierley, of Egerton Court, denied she had used threatening / abusive / insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress towards a transgender person in Barrow on November 19 last year.

However magistrates at South Cumbria Magistrates Court convicted her after trial on January 2.

Brierley was also found guilty of harassment in relation to breaching a restraining order on conviction against the complainant, which was imposed by the court on October 30.

The 55-year-old was jailed for 16 weeks after magistrates ruled the offences were ‘deliberate’ and ‘so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified’.

They said the offence would have ordinarily been a low-level community order but said that they were uplifting the sentence to immediate imprisonment because the offences were ‘motivated entirely by hostility demonstrated to the victim’s perceived sexuality’.