Sunderland man jailed after spitting at police officer during hospital visit

Magistrates handed Michael Peter Gallagher a six-week sentence after judging the offence to be “so serious” because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the assault’s hospital setting.

Gallagher, 31, of Rangoon Road, Red House, Sunderland, was taken by police to Sunderland Royal Hospital for assessment after he was arrested in the city’s Ryhope area in connection with an unrelated matter.

South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court was told that he started using aggressive language in a waiting area and spat at the male officer after he was taken into a side room.

Gallagher admitted committing assault and using threatening or abusive words or behaviour on November 21.

He was ordered to pay his victim £50 compensation by July of this year and will serve his sentence as part of a larger jail term imposed only last week.

A judge at Newcastle Crown Court locked Gallagher up for 15 months after he admitted stealing a television, laptop and Royal Dalton ornaments from from his mother’s home.

The court was told his long-standing drug addiction had led to his mum giving him handouts and even taking out loans to keep him out of trouble.

After her cashflow dried up, however, Gallagher subjected her to "threats and abuse" and left her petrified.

When he turned up at her door with a head injury last June, she agreed to let him stay until he was healed.

Yet more than £2,000 of her possessions had disappeared when she returned from work the following day.

Helen Towers, prosecuting, said: "She never thought he would do this to his own mother, after all she has done for him.

"She feels betrayed. She has tried to do her best for him, give him her last and this is the way he chose to repay her.”

Judge Tim Gittins labelled the theft “a mean offence” and also imposed a five-year restraining order to keep him away from his mother.

Glenn Gatland, mitigating, told the crown court that Gallagher had a troubled childhood and suffered from post traumatic stress disorder as a result of seeing a friend die in a motorbike accident in the past.

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