A DEFENDANT who fought two security officers at York Crown Court has been given a community order.

Mark Anthony Murtagh, 34, was due to be sentenced in October for biting one police officer and claiming he had Covid before coughing in another officer’s face.

But he was refused entry into the courthouse because of his drunken state.

He tried to get in regardless and when security officers stopped him, fought them at the court entrance.

York Crown Court heard last December he also urinated against the courthouse outer wall.

He was arrested, returned to the court on a later date in custody, and jailed for 14 months for two assaults on police emergency workers and a related racial assault.

He was also charged with two offences of assaulting court security officers.

Murtagh, of Manor Row, Bradford, pleaded guilty to the charges on the day he was due to stand trial. .

He was sentenced at Bradford Magistrates Court to a 12-month community order with 15 days’ rehabilitative activities.

He was also ordered to pay £100 compensation to one of the officers, £85 prosecution costs and a £95 statutory surcharge.

York Crown Court heard last December the police were trying to arrest Murtagh for racially assaulting a shop security guard in Sainsbury’s supermarket in Wetherby Road, Harrogate.