A hospital patient who assaulted a nurse after vowing to knock out staff members has been jailed for a total of 30 weeks.
Elijah Ali, 32, caused a disturbance when attending the Cumberland Infirmary’s accident and emergency department in Carlisle on April 15.
Ali was seeking treatment for his alcoholism, the city’s magistrates’ court was told, and was described as highly intoxicated.
On being asked to wait for a doctor, Ali, of Warwick Road, Carlisle, became volatile. He then said: “I’ll knock every one of you out. I’m the best fighting man on this planet.”
Ali then grabbed a staff nurse by the wrist, causing a cut to her hand. He was taken outside the building by security staff and arrested for assaulting an emergency worker — a charge he later admitted in court.
Ali was sentenced for that matter today, when he also pleaded guilty to illegal knife possession in public and non-violent harassment of his former partner.
That had occurred in June when the woman made a 999 call to police reporting that ex-partner Ali had turned up at her address. She was told he had tried to get through a side gate, and he then banged in windows and doors in a threatening manner.
When police attended, they discovered a Stanley knife-type blade which Ali had discarded in a nearby bush. He later claimed he had the implement for tiling work.
When interviewed about the hospital assault, he stated he hadn’t meant to hurt the nurse. “He was intoxicated and said he grabbed her wrist out of fear,” said prosecutor George Shelley. “He stated he was reckless and apologised for his actions.”
Jeff Smith, defending, said Ali had spent six weeks in custody on remand and been abstinent from alcohol. “Unless he tackles his alcohol consumption, his future is going to be interspersed with regular visits to Durham Prison which will be no good to him and no good to the community,” said Mr Smith of a problem which had blighted the defendant’s past.
But in view of two previous knife possession crimes, and earlier offending against his former partner, the district judge jailed him for a total of 30 weeks. Ali was also made subject to a five-year restraining order banning him from contacting his ex or entering Atkinson Crescent.
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