Court report: Young woman spat in the eye of a police officer and swung punches at nurses

Nineteen-year-old Shannon Johanson also targeted a paramedic and swung punches at nurses as part of violent outbursts in two separate hospitals.

Imposing two years’ probation for one of the incidents, District Judge Anne Marshall deferred sentencing on the other offences for six months.

But she warned Johanson: “The risk of custody is still live.”

The defendant, with an address at Anndale Avenue in the city, was convicted of a series of assaults on police, disorderly behaviour, assaulting an ambulance worker, and two common assaults on medical staff.

Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard she was discovered lying unconscious outside a shop on High Street on March 3 this year.

She sat up after an ambulance was requested, became abusive and spat on a PSNI constable’s face and neck.

Johanson’s aggression continued on being prevented from smoking in the ambulance, spitting again on an officer and a female paramedic treating her.

At the Mater Hospital she became violent and had to be restrained, according to the prosecution.

When asked to calm down because other sick patients were being treated, replied: “I don’t give a f***.”

In an earlier incident on February 18, Johanson reacted aggressively after two nurses approached her at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

A Crown lawyer said she swung a clenched fist at the members of staff, failing to connect but putting them in fear of being struck.

A female police officer who arrested her at the scene was kicked in the stomach and spat on, with a further attempt made to bite her.

Defence barrister Turlough Madden accepted his client was at risk of imprisonment, but detailed her “tragic” life in mitigation.

Judge Marshall stated that she could have been sent to jail for a total of 13 months.

“To assault nurses trying to help you and to continue that behaviour by spitting in a police officer’s eye is absolutely disgraceful behaviour, no matter what has happened to you,” she told Johanson.

“But if you come back in six months, haven’t re-offended and there is a glowing report (from probation), I won’t put you in custody.”