A drug addict who spat in the face of three police officers and hurled his faeces at a detention officer has been jailed for seven months.

Richard White, 50, had 70 previous convictions for 133 offences and this was his third set of convictions for assaulting police officers, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

White, of Chapel Terrace, Thornton, Bradford, pleaded guilty to assaulting three police officers as emergency workers on March 11 and criminal damage to a police cell.

It was his eighth conviction for criminal damage, the court was told.

The police attended the scene of a disturbance in Bradford and were attacked when they were arresting White and putting him into a vehicle.

He kicked a female officer in the thigh and spat in her eye.

White called a second female officer a slag and spat in her face.

When a male officer joined in the struggle he spat in his face as well.

Enquiries revealed that White had caught hepatitis in the past so the three officers had to undergo a series of blood tests. They were also worried about catching coronavirus from him because the assaults were shortly before the country went into lockdown.

White then covered himself in his faeces in the police cell, taunting officers and hurling it at them, the court was told.

He blocked the intercom with his excrement and it had to be rewired and the cell deep cleaned, both at considerable expense.

The court heard that the spat-on officers were left distressed and frightened.

The male officer said the incident had made him question his choice of career.

The women officers were afraid of giving hepatitis to their families. One said she felt degraded and had burst into tears when she was told she was at risk.

The court was told that White was ravaged by many years of drug addiction.

His support worker had attended court with him.

He was now free from drugs and deeply ashamed and remorseful.

The judge, Recorder Margia Mostafa, said: “This is absolutely appalling behaviour.”

She could see that White was ashamed because he had sat in the dock with his head bowed while the details of the case were read out in court.

But only an immediate prison sentence would meet the justice of the case, Recorder Mostafa said.

White was jailed for two months for each assault on an officer, the sentences to run consecutively, with a month on top for criminal damage to the police cell.