A WOMAN has avoided an immediate jail sentence for attacking two police officers and her role in a burglary earlier this year. 

Regan Burdis, 20, of Talbot Street, Harwich, was sentenced at Colchester Magistrates' Court after admitting two charges of beating an emergency worker in August 2023 and a charge of burglary in May this year. 

Burdis was captured on CCTV going to a shop with Luke Harvey, 30, of Valley Road, who smashed the shop’s window at around 3.09am on May 20. 

The duo later returned at around 5.45am, when Harvey took an air rifle estimated at £3,000, jewellery worth around £2700 and necklaces worth £270. 

Burdis was waiting outside the shop, the court was told. 

She was also resentenced for two prior offences, including one in September 2022 when she was drunk and verbally abused, threw fish and chips, and beat and spat at a victim in St Osyth. 

The court heard that Burdis was taking steps to change, which included quitting drink and drugs.

Her solicitor said she had been clean for three weeks, which was a considerable amount of time for her. 

Paula Fell, mitigating, said: “She has reached rock bottom and she is looking for help or her future looks bleak. She has let herself down.” 

Mrs Fell said Burdis was aware that the offences put together could send her to prison. 

“She either will do what she is asked and uses the help, or she spectacularly fails in reality," she said. 

“She says she wants to do this and I ask the court to test her on this.” 

Following her arrest on May 29, the court heard Burdis and her mother had experienced issues in the community after their address was published by Essex Police. 

Mrs Fell said: “The local abuse has hit home to her. The local community doesn’t want anything to do with her because of what she has done.” 

Magistrates agreed that Burdis’s young age and her efforts to get away from addiction mitigated her case and told the defendant she would not be "going to jail today”. 

They sentence her to 14 weeks in jail, suspended for 12 months. 

The court also ordered her to do 12 sessions of mental health treatment, up to 30 hours of rehabilitation and pay £500 compensation to the shop. 

Harvey is due to be sentenced at Colchester Magistrates’ Court on July 15 for 19 offences of theft and burglary, which he has admitted.