JOBLESS Elizabeth Goodchild punched a police officer twice in the face for mistaking her for a prostitute, a court heard.Goodchild, 24, was jailed for 76 days for hitting the policewoman, breaking her spectacles and bruising her eye.

JOBLESS Elizabeth Goodchild punched a police officer twice in the face for mistaking her for a prostitute, a court heard.

Goodchild, 24, was jailed for 76 days for hitting the policewoman, breaking her spectacles and bruising her eye.

The inspector visited an area notorious for prostitution in Ipswich after receiving complaints from local residents, prosecutor Gareth Davies told South East Suffolk Magistrates.

The officer moved on a woman loitering in the area before she came across Goodchild who was standing on the corner of Handford Road and Handford Cut.

When Goodchild, of Wherstead Road, Ipswich, was asked to leave she became abusive and aggressive. The inspector took hold of her arm and Goodchild retaliated by punching her.

Roger Stewart, mitigating, told magistrates Goodchild had been waiting to meet her boyfriend when she was approached by the officer. "My client took offence and became abusive," said Mr Stewart.

Bench chairwoman Debbie Langton sentenced Goodchild to 76 days in prison, which had already served on remand. She was asked to pay £100 compensation.

Goodchild, was also sentenced to four weeks jail to run concurrently for a separate offence of stealing two leather trousers from Asda, which she also admitted.

The court heard Goodchild, who has previous convictions, was abandoned in a park a few months after she was born, before she was taken under the wing of a foster carer for nine years.

She was reconciled with her natural mother for a year before she returned to her foster parents but by that stage the damage was already done.

"She didn't settle down and got into more and more difficulties," explained Mr Stewart.