A WOMAN bit a nurse and assaulted two doctors while in the grip of a serious medical episode at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary.

Wheelchair user Claire Nelson, 25, was “deep in a dissociative breakdown” when she committed three offences at the hospital on January 24 this year.

A prosecutor told the city’s crown court: “The defendant had been disruptive so that the police were called. They initially intervened and the situation calmed down temporarily. She then began being violent to nursing staff — a sister and two doctors.”

Nelson bit the nurse, who needed a hepatitis injection in the aftermath along with two separate blood tests to screen for any infection.

One doctor was kicked in the arm and manage to evade Nelson’s bid to bite them. A second doctor was scratched on the arm.

“All while they were trying to assist the defendant,” explained the prosecutor.

One doctor said Nelson’s disruption “was going on for about an hour while they had the defendant under observation”.

Nelson admitted charges of assaulting an emergency worker. 

Kim Whittlestone, mitigating, said it was clear that Nelson had genuine severe clinical needs. She was a woman with no previous convictions and at the time of the assaults she was “in pain and in fear”.

Nelson’s medication had since been increased and she presented at court for her sentencing hearing “calmer and in a situation where she appears more in control”.

A probation officer had taken the unusual step of recommending that Nelson should be made subject to a conditional discharge. Other community punishments had been ruled out because of her difficulties.

Judge Michael Fanning read a detailed background report and concluded there was no intent by Nelson to cause harm.

“You were in the midst of a complex, distressing breakdown,” the judge noted. “The fact that people were trying to help you is something you wouldn’t have recognised at the time.”

Judge Fanning imposed a two-year discharge, meaning that Nelson, of Bridlington Close, Wallsend, will not be punished unless she commits another offence during that period.

But he told Nelson: “You know, and everybody knows, that people working in hospitals trying to care for those who are ill deserve to be treated with respect.

“They have a difficult job, very stressful. The last thing they need is somebody literally kicking off, scratching and biting them.”