A woman has been given a 12 month suspended sentence at Derry Magistrate’s Court for assaulting a pregnant woman while in Altnagelvin Hospital.
Anna Kopel (41) from Derry admitted three charges of assault that took place in the A&E department on January 3 this year.
The court heard on Friday that police were called to the hospital to a report that an intoxicated female had assaulted a patient.
When they arrived the complainant told them that she was 17 weeks pregnant and was in A&E when a woman, the defendant, pushed her and then punched her in the ribs ‘three or four times’.
A second person then told police that a drunk woman had tried to sit on his knee and when he tried to stop her she had grabbed his hair.
A woman then told police she had seen a female “stagger past her” and fall onto a man.
She sat beside this injured party and then grabbed her by the coat leaving her “in shock.”
At interview Kopel told police she had drunk about four bottles of wine that day.
She said she usually drank between 1 to 5 bottles of wine a day.
Kopel, from Aberfoyle Terrace, said she did not remember much about the incidents in the hospital. and did not remember assaulting anyone but accepted she could be “aggressive” when drunk.
Deputy District Judge John Connolly said that these offences took place in Altnagelvin Hospital with “vulnerable people” involved.
He said that if it had not been what he had read in the pre-sentence report it would have been immediate custody.
Instead he sentenced Kopel to 12 months suspended for three years.