A man has been convicted of head-butting a nurse at Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital.
Liam Harkin (33) of St Columb’s Wells in Derry, pleaded guilty to assaulting the nurse and two other members of staff at the hospital during an incident on November 24 last year.
Derry Magistrates Court was told Harkin was heavily intoxicated when he arrived for treatment at the hospital.
He was in an agitated state and as one of the nurses tried to help him, he head-butted her, the court was told.
Harkin also assaulted another nurse and a doctor who tried to calm him down.
During the incident, he also ran down a hallway and tried to get into other patients’ rooms.
Defence solicitor Paddy MacDermott said it was a “very distressing” incident, particularly given that it involved staff at a hospital being attacked.
Mr MacDermott said Harkin took issue with the description of the assault on the nurse as a “head-butt” and claimed it was more a case of him “falling into” the nurse.
However, Mr MacDermott said Harkin had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and wished to apologise for his behaviour.
The solicitor said his client claimed he had behaved in such a terrible manner during an “episode” when he was “coming down” from alcohol abuse.
Deputy District Judge Alan White described Harkin’s behaviour as “absolutely disgraceful”.
He said he had a choice of either to jail Harkin for a short period and then have him released without receiving treatment for his alcohol addiction, or impose a suspended sentence and order him to pay compensation to the victims.
Judge White said he had chosen to go with the latter and imposed a jail sentence of five months for each of the assault offences, suspended for three years.
Harkin was also ordered to pay £100 compensation to each of the victims.
Judge White said such behaviour in a hospital ‘’cannot be tolerated”.
