The bride-to-be of a Worcester pub landlord who pretended robbers held her at gunpoint in the bar and stole £5,700 takings has been jailed.

Kim Gandy, who lived in accommodation attached to the Barn Owl in Berkeley Way, Warndon Villages, also invented the name of one alleged intruder – who was wrongly arrested.

Armed police with dogs surrounded his home and he was quizzed for five hours while held in custody, Worcester Crown Court heard. Prosecutor Paul Whitfield said Gandy got up at 7am on June 22, grabbed the cash from the safe and hid it inside a vacuum cleaner.

She then pretended in a hysterical outburst to her fiancee that two robbers got into the pub and held her up with a shotgun.

She named a man called “Chris” before armed officers – some called in from Shrewsbury – rushed to his home in Burford Close, Worcester.

The man was arrested as he returned from work, in an operation costing £3,700, but was released after police became suspicious of Gandy’s story.

Gandy, aged 29, of Marina Drive, Orford, Warrington, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and theft.

Jailing her for six months, Judge Toby Hooper QC said she implicated an innocent man and had to be locked up to deter others. He said a psychiatric report showed she was consumed by “self interest” and was “attention seeking”.

The judge added: “The police took this seriously and treated you as a vulnerable witness to a shocking crime. The public must know that immediate imprisonment results, even for a woman of previous good character.”

The licensee and Gandy had come to Worcester from the Warrington area.

He was manager and she helped out occasionally.

Two days after the incident she was arrested and confessed she had told a pack of lies, claiming the voice “of a dominant male” in her head had egged her on.

The money was recovered - and Gandy’s fiancee called off their wedding scheduled for August.

The mother-of-one had a fragile personality and was under stress from her wedding plans, said Joe Kieran, defending.

She slept fitfully that night before getting involved in “madcap events” and telling police “a complete fable”.

Since then she had returned to live with her parents and had shown remorse for wasting police time.

Mr Kieran added: “She is sad rather than bad. This was bizarre and she is unlikely to offend again. What happened was tantamount to a nervous breakdown.”