Judge gives a hospital order to a Basingstoke woman after knifepoint robbery (From Andover Advertiser)

Judge gives a hospital order to a Basingstoke woman after knifepoint robbery

7:00pm Sunday 24th February 2013 in Basingstoke By Chris Gregory

A WOMAN who admitted robbing a Basingstoke taxi driver at knifepoint has been given a hospital order.

Natasha Stanley held a knife to the throat of Dean Stubbs after he took her and her friends on a return trip to the supermarket on February 15 last year.

The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to robbery, and breach of an anti-social behaviour order in March last year, and appeared before Judge Keith Cutler at Winchester Crown Court.

Tom Wright, prosecuting, said the taxi called at Stanley’s former home in Knight Street, Kings Furlong, Basingstoke, to take her and her three friends to a supermarket and back.

Despite fearing he would not be paid, Mr Stubbs drove the group back to Stanley’s home.

Mr Wright said: “As he drove up the street, he felt the blade of a knife held to his throat and a demand from Natasha Stanley to hand over his money box.

“He protested that he did not have any money and made a grab for the knife.”

The pair then struggled, which led to cuts to the neck and head of Mr Stubbs, before he took the weapon and ran out of his car.

The court heard that since Stanley’s guilty plea, she had spent five months at St Andrew’s hospital in Northampton, a medium-secure psychiatric hospital.

Judge Cutler said he had read two psychiatric reports that found Stanley had a borderline personality disorder that had contributed to previous offending.

He said: “She has presented, in the past, a significant risk to the general public but it’s hoped that continued treatment will reduce that risk and hopefully eliminate it altogether.”

He gave Stanley an unlimited hospital order, under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. It means she will stay at the hospital until a successful application is made to a mental health tribunal.