A MAN who was being treated at hospital spat at staff and shouted racist abuse at them.

Blackburn magistrates heard when security officers tried to turn his face away so Christopher Dale Murphy could not spit on them be began lashing out with his arms and legs and one of them was kneed in the groin.

Police officers who came to their assistance were also spat at and subjected to racist abuse.

One of them looked into the next cubicle where he said there was an elderly lady who was trembling with fear and clearly extremely distressed by the defendant's behaviour.

Murphy, 35, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to three charges of assaulting an emergency worker and one of racially aggravated threatening behaviour. He was jailed for 24 weeks.

Steven Woodman, prosecuting, said police had been called to a disturbance on Cardwell Place where they found Murphy covered in blood from a head injury. The police took him to hospital where he was left in the care of hospital staff.

Security guards monitoring CCTV saw Murphy leave his cubicle and go behind the nurses station and remove something.

They decided to attend and see what he had taken and discovered a hospital thermometer in his pocket.

"They gave him some warnings and then decided to wait outside the cubicle," said Mr Woodman. "They could hear him being aggressive towards nursing staff and when they intervened he spat in the eye of one of them."

During the struggle that followed Murphy spat repeatedly at both men.

"He was spitting a mixture of spittle and blood which was all over the floor, walls and bed," said Mr Woodman.

He said the same officers who had taken to hospital returned and they were subject to racist abuse as were women and people of colour who came within view.

"An elderly female patient in the next cubicle was terrified by what was going on," said Mr Woodman.

He said one of the security officers had to attend A & E as a patient to have his eye washed out where Murphy had spat on him.

Gareth Price, defending, said he was instructed not to try to persuade the magistrates to impose anything other than a custodial sentence.

"He concedes that is the only realistic outcome," said Mr Price.

He said Murphy was convinced he had been "spiked" with something before the incident in Cardwell Place.

"He was certainly not himself," said Mr Price. "In the cold light of day he is able to see how distressing his behaviour would have been for the four victims and the other people who were in the hospital on that day."