A TERRIFIED hotel receptionist locked herself in an office when a “paranoid” man leapt over the counter, a court was told.

Ex-company boss, Akbar Ullah, 34, who had had a cocktail of vodka and cocaine, had been foulmouthed before he jumped into the staff section at the Premier Inn, on Queen Victoria Road, Burnley.

He had been trying to get a room to hide in, as he thought somebody was looking for him to attack him, the town’s magistrates heard.

Ullah, a former computer firm owner who is now on benefits, told police he hadn’t wanted to scare anybody.

But, the bench chairman told him anybody would have been startled and frightened of something happening, and they had to take into account how the receptionist must have felt.

The defendant, of Leeds Road, Nelson, admitted possessing cocaine and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, on August 13.

He was given a four-week curfew, between 9pm and 7am, seven days a week and told to pay a £60 victim surcharge, £85 costs and £50 compensation to the hotel receptionist.

Alex Mann, prosecuting, said Ullah had told the receptionist he would talk to the police if she rang them, and, rather than staying calm when she did, he swore at hotel employees and jumped over the reception desk.

The receptionist had refused the defendant a room, and when the manager arrived, the incident progressed.

The manager stayed at the desk and the scared receptionist locked herself in a back room.

Miss Mann said Ullah was interviewed and accepted he had been paranoid after having vodka and cocaine.

In 2006, Ullah, then owner and managing director of Open Mind Marketing Co Ltd, had been jailed for eight months, after leading police on a high-speed motorway chase from Colne to Manchester.

He had hit a taxi, clocked up more than 100mph and careered through red lights in the centre of Manchester.

Ullah, who had been on cocaine and temazepam, leapt on the bonnet of a patrol car when he finally stopped and put up a violent struggle.

Just over two years later, the former Times Computers worker was spared jail after pocketing almost £4,000 of customers’ cash for a software system he didn’t deliver.

In February 2012, he appeared in court for a £30,000 fraud, when he pretended he was running a firm with a claims call centre.

Ullah, who was sent prison for a year, had not offended since, until the hotel trouble.