News / Buckfast session ends badly
A MAN’S decision to experiment with Buckfast, which concluded with him spitting at a police officer and threatening to throw urine over a nurse, has landed him with a £1,000 compensation bill.
Stephen Whitehead, of Moffatt Road, Owton Manor, Hartlepool, was also placed under supervision for 14 months and given 220 hours of unpaid work to complete.
The 32 year old previously pled guilty to assaulting, obstructing or hindering an ambulance paramedic and assaulting a police officer by spitting at and striking her on the body, all on Lerwick’s South Road on 6 May.
He also admitted breaching the peace at the Gilbert Bain Hospital by shouting, swearing and uttering threats.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie told Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday that Whitehead was found drunkenly sleeping outside his hotel in the early hours of the morning by concerned staff.
Police were called and an ambulance later took the joiner to hospital, but Whitehead’s behaviour then turned “disgusting”.
He spat at a paramedic and police officer before threatening to throw urine over a nurse.
In the A&E department Whitehead shocked “anxious” onlookers with a “tirade of meaningless swear words”, Mackenzie said.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client had struggled with being so far away from home due to his employment and was drinking with colleagues.
However, he was “unfamiliar with the work of Buckfast” and got drunker than he expected to after imbibing the tonic wine.
Whitehead was “thoroughly ashamed” of his behaviour, Allan said, and had demonstrated a “large degree of remorse” to social workers and his family.
Sheriff John Rafferty ruled that the court has a “duty to protect ambulance paramedics, police officers, hospital staff and patients”.
The sheriff said pleading guilty at an early opportunity and showing remorse saved Whitehead from going to jail.
Sheriff Rafferty ordered the man to pay a total of £1,000 in compensation to his victims and placed him under supervision for 14 months.
He will also have to carry out 220 hours of unpaid work.
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