A HOSPITAL patient who assaulted a security guard in its accident and emergency unit has been jailed.

Sam Law, prosecuting, said Charlotte Katy Brosenitz was so abusive towards nursing staff at York Hospital they called security staff to deal with her.

She shouted, hit a towel dispenser on the wall and as two security staff tried to restrain her, spat in one of their faces.

“It was a nasty incident,” said Ms Law. Brosenitz was eventually ejected from the accident and emergency unit.

District judge Adrian Lower told her: “Hospitals are places where ill people require treatment.

“Your behaviour towards the guard and his colleague was no doubt very distracting for other hospital staff and prevented them from turning their attention to people more deserving of it.

“You committed a most cowardly offence of assault by spitting in the face of the guard, a wholly demeaning and truly unacceptable thing to do.”No doubt he found it disgusting, and so do I.

“I want a very firm message to go out that hospital staff are not to be treated in this way.”

He jailed shopworker Brosenitz, 23, of Poplar Grove, New Earswick, for 10 weeks.

She admitted assault.

Ms Law said Brosenitz was in the hospital’s accident and emergency unit in the early hours of Sunday May 4.

When they arrived, security staff tried to calm her down, but she was being abusive to everyone and they tried to restrain her by holding her on the ground. For her, Kevin Blount said she had a problem with alcohol. That night, she had drunk alcohol and taken some M-cat.

“That has made her act in a way she is embarrassed and disgusted by,” said the solicitor.

She would not have taken the M-cat if she had not been drinking. York Magistrates Court heard she had previous convictions linked to drinking.