A MAN who subjected police to expletive-laden threats and rants at two separate hospitals in Belfast has been jailed for six months.
Ryan Drumgoole (24) became irate after being denied a cigarette and gestured to head-butt an officer while on the wards, prosecutors said.
District Judge Anne Marshall told him: "There were sick people and children in the hospitals, and your behaviour towards police was just terrible".
With an address at a hostel on Utility Street in Belfast, he pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly behaviour, resisting police and threats to damage his mother's home.
Belfast Magistrates Court heard Drumgoole told her he would smash the living-room window when she refused entry to the Enfield Street property on June 4 this year.
Six days later he was arrested and then taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital for medical treatment.
Drumgoole requested a cigarette while in the emergency department, and then angrily shouted. According to the prosecution he responded to police warnings about his behaviour by calling an officer "a balloon".
In an earlier incident on March 13, he was detained near Botanic Avenue in south Belfast, but fell and split his chin while in handcuffs. Drumgoole was taken to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald after his condition deteriorated.
Other members of the public were present as he swore and threatened violence towards police, telling one officer: "Take these cuffs off, or I will kick your head in."
Defence counsel argued that one of the incidents involved just "raised voices".
However, Judge Marshall stressed: "There are (offences) at two different hospitals on two different dates."
Sentencing Drumgoole to six months in prison, she added: "Any disorderly behaviour in a hospital is a serious matter and the custody threshold is passed".
