A LANDLADY sparked a huge police operation after binding and gagging herself in a staged 'CSI' style break-in to persuade her boyfriend they should move house.

Kim Collins was rescued by special officers after a police helicopter was scrambled to the Big Club in Boldon Colliery after a cleaner found her bound and gagged inside.

South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court heard how the Collins was tied to a chair with tape over her mouth, cable ties around her wrists and cuts to her arms and legs.

She told the terrified cleaner a masked man had woken her in the night and tied her up before he snorted a bag of cocaine, emptied the safe and disappeared.

But after detectives found holes in her story, she admitted to making the whole thing up to try to convince her boyfriend and business partner that they should sell the club and move away.

Collins, 42, of Station Road, Boldon Colliery, claimed inspiration for the bizarre plan from watching crime scene investigation programmes.

Paul Anderson, prosecuting, said: “She had cuts to her arms and legs and said the man had cut her and ran the knife across her body. She was taken to hospital for treatment.”

Collins pleaded guilty to wasting police time and possessing a Class A drug when she appeared at court on Tuesday.

David Forrester, mitigating, said: “This lady clearly thought this was a good idea in the short term but hadn’t realised how the police would deal with it.”

Magistrates adjourned the case until November 16 for Collins to be interviewed by a community psychiatric nurse and the Probation Service.

She was granted unconditional bail until then.