Man threatened to kill receptionist and holidaymaker during 40-minute rage at Sunderland hotel

Callum Snowball, 23, grabbed it from behind the reception desk of Seaburn’s seafront Grand Hotel after starting an argument with the female employee.

When a woman on vacation who he had just met tried to calm him down, Snowball shouted, “I’m going outside for a tab. If she’s still here when I get back, I’m going to kill her and then I’m going to kill you.”

The offence, on Tuesday, July 21, came days after he had been released from an eight-week stretch for assaulting an emergency worker.

He has now avoided being sent back to prison after being handed a suspended eight-week sentence.

Magistrates in South Tyneside said it had been a “particularly nasty offence” which had clearly passed the custodial threshold.

Chair of the bench Tony Hewison told Snowball: “God knows what these ladies were thinking when you picked up that weapon.”

Prosecutor Lesley Burgess told the court: “The witness was staying at the Grand Hotel, and was outside speaking to two men who she didn’t know.“One began to argue with a female receptionist who was behind the reception desk.

“The witness was trying to diffuse the situation, but the man was acting really aggressively.

“He said, ‘Are you two talking about me?’ He was picking up a metal post from behind the desk, and he started waving it around.

“He then said, ‘I’m going outside for a tab, if she’s still here when I get back, I’m going to kill her and then I’m going to kill you.

“She was fearful and called the police. The male then went with his friend to their rooms. The incident lasted about 40 minutes.”

Tom Morgan, defending, said Snowball had been housed at the hotel by a local authority.

He added: “He is someone with major mental health issues, he suffers from a personality disorder.

“He had found himself homeless. He was extremely psychologically unwell.”

Snowball, whose sentence was suspended for a year, admitted to threatening violence.

Snowball, of Bessemer Street, Ferryhill, was given 20 days of rehabilitation work with the Probation Service and must pay a £122 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.

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