A MAN who accused NHS staff of being drunk and lying to him during hundreds of nuisance calls has been jailed for six months.

Salak Alum made 623 calls to Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said to have cost the authority just under £10,000, Bradford Crown Court heard.

He also made calls to the NHS 111 non-emergency service, shouting abuse and being aggressive to call handlers.

Prosecutor Paul Nicholson told the court Alum had pleaded guilty to a charge of persistent misuse of an electronic communications network at an earlier hearing.

He made so many calls to the NHS 111 service that a special alert message was attached to his name and address in an attempt to prevent staff having to deal with them.

In response, Alum, of Chassum Grove, Heaton, tried using false names to get around being blocked.

Mr Nicholson said the 46-year-old had accused staff he spoke to of "being drunk and lying to him" during the calls, which were made between June and October last year.

The court was told that Alum had also made numerous nuisance calls to Bradford Council and West Yorkshire Police, although these were not taken into account within the charges against him.

In mitigation, Michael Walsh said Alum, who lives alone and uses a wheelchair due to a long-standing spinal condition, had made no calls since the end of October 2014 and was "not someone looking to commit criminal offences."

"He made the phone calls out of loneliness, although that is no excuse," he said.

"He was looking for companionship and people to speak to."

Alum was already serving a suspended prison term for assaulting a nurse in June 2103. He was sentenced to four months, suspended for two years, in April last year for breaking the nurse's finger while a patient at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

Experienced nurse Denise Ellison-Wood had to undergo physiotherapy for more than four months as a result of the injury caused by Alum, when he grabbed her hands as she tried to stop him banging on his bed with a remote control in the middle of the night.

Sentencing Alum yesterday, Judge Jonathan Rose labelled the phone calls as "unpleasant and abusive."

"I have no doubt that you are in some discomfort due to your back injury, and at times very lonely," he said.

"But these are people in the public services doing a difficult job, who while they are speaking to you are unable to deal with genuine emergency calls.

"When you abuse public servants, waste time for the sick and needy, and waste so much public money, it is to prison you must go."