A WOMAN who repeatedly shouted obscenities from a telephone box in Settle has been ordered to pay £195 in fines and costs by Skipton magistrates.

Geraldine Beale, 43, admitted using threatening or abusive words in Duke Street on June 11, but told magistrates she believed police had 'greatly exaggerated' what had happened.

The court heard that there had been a call to police during the afternoon of June 11 to report a woman screaming and banging the sides of a telephone box.

When police arrived, she continued shouting and swearing so was arrested and later charged with the public order offence, the court heard.

Beale, who was unrepresented in court, said she was using the public telephone because the battery on her mobile phone had run out.

"I was talking to a person on the phone and I swore at them, there was hardly anyone about," she said.

She claimed she had carried on her conversation and the police officers had come back and arrested her.

"I accepted that I swore, but it was greatly exaggerated by the police, " she said.

Beale, of Haddon Road, Burley, Leeds, was fined £80 and ordered to pay costs of £85 and surcharge of £30.