A 22-year-old, who bombarded her love rival with nuisance phone calls for over a month, was ordered to complete a 100-hour community punishment order today.

Magistrates heard Kristin Thompson was furious when she suspected he boyfriend had rekindled an affair with Dawn Atkinson.

So, over the next few weeks she made 459 nuisance calls to Miss Atkinson's mobile and another 261 to her mother's hotel in Aysgarth.

None of the calls lasted more than seconds - but what Thompson didn't know was that they could still be traced by British Telecom and, yesterday, she appeared before magistrates in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where she admitted a charge of harassment.

The Bench imposed a two-year restraining order, banning Thompson of Main Street, West Witton, from contacting Ms Atkinson; Thompson was also ordered to pay £55 towards prosecution costs.

Prosecuting, Emma Pearce told the court there was a history of resentment between the two women which began when Thompson discovered Ms Atkinson had an affair with a man she had been seeing for four years.

At one stage the feud even exploded into violence and magistrates heard Thompson had a conviction for assaulting Ms Atkinson - but her hate campaign did not end there.

The two women clashed again at a village dance in Aysgarth and, when Thompson was led to believe Ms Atkinson was still seeing her boyfriend, the phone calls began.

Ms Pearce said, at first, the calls were made to Miss Atkinson's mobile but, when she moved from Leyburn to her mother's hotel to escape the vendetta, Thompson began calling her there.

At one stage the calls came at a rate of 47 in just over an hour, virtually blocking the hotel's lines and damaging the family business.

Ms Pearce pointed out, according to BT records, 28 per cent of calls received by the hotel in a 37-day period between December 2002 and January 14 this year were made from Thompson's mobile.

Mitigating in court yesterday, solicitor Philip Brown emphasised the calls could only be described as a nuisance as Thompson had never made any threats.

However, he added: ''She now realises what she did was stupid and entirely wrong.''