Man coughed at frontline worker

Friday 01 May 2020

A man has been sent to prison for six months after he verbally abused and deliberately coughed at a pharmacy assistant.

Christopher Carter, 26, has been jailed for six months following the incident on 26 March at Queens Road Pharmacy.

Angry that his prescription was not ready, Carter admitted verbally abusing the key worker but denied deliberately coughing at her as he was leaving.

Judge Gary Perry did not believe Carter, who had committed violent or public disorder offences as recently as 2018, was telling the truth. 

"This is the most unpleasant offence I have had to deal with during this lockdown period," he said. "I totally reject that it [the cough] was an involuntary reaction."

Citing the defendant's poor record, Judge Perry gave short shrift to the mental health mitigation put forward by his Advocate.

"All the problems you faced on that day were of your own making," he said. "You are someone who likes to take their problems out on other people."

Pictured: Queens Road Medical Practice. The pharmacy is at QRMP and is located to the rear of the building shown. 

The fact that this offence had been committed during the covid-19 lockdown was an aggravating factor Judge Perry said - in this case, even more so as his actions could have represented a genuine public health risk. 

"It is an offence against a key frontline worker together with other innocent members of the public."

While he gave Carter some credit for his guilty plea to the verbal assault, that was tempered by the fact that he denied the most egregious part of the offence.

"You sought to distance yourself from the most aggravating part of the offence," Judge Perry said as he sentenced Carter to six months imprisonment, starting from when he first entered custody on 29 March.