A West Cumbrian woman fractured a police officer’s finger as she kicked out following her arrest.
Rachel Walker, 38, had been staying at a hotel in Lancaster with a male when fellow guests reported arguing and the sound of items smashing.
Walker was verbally abusive towards a porter before police arrived.
She became increasingly aggressive, slurred her words and was arrested to prevent a further breach of the peace.
She spat in the back of a patrol vehicle and stated: “I’m going to spit in police’s eyes. I have hepatitis.”
A spit hood was applied but not properly. And when a female PC at a station got into the back to try and adjust it, Walker lashed out.
She kicked towards the officer’s face and, as the PC sought to protect herself, connected with her hand.
“She described feeling severe pain,” prosecutor David Bentley told Carlisle Crown Court today.
The little finger on her left hand quickly became swollen and turned purple.
The officer — treated in hospital where an X-ray confirmed a fracture — was off work for six weeks and later described being reluctant to attend violent incidents, and feeling anxious.
Walker, of Ruby Road, Salterbeck, admitted actual bodily harm following the incident on May 27 2019.
In view of the length of time which had elapsed and the fact Walker had kept out of trouble since, Judge Richard Archer stepped back from a prison sentence.
He imposed an 18-month community order, comprising rehabilitation work and an eight-week night time curfew which, he said, would keep her in at night over Christmas and new year.
“They have a hard enough job,” Judge Archer told Walker of the police, “without being spat at or threatened to be spat at, and certainly expecting their fingers to be fractured.”
