A man who spat on a police officer from his hospital bed after being thrown out of a pub on New Year’s Eve has been jailed for ten months.

Marcus Cooper breached a suspended sentence order when he assaulted the officer who was sitting with him at Bradford Royal Infirmary after he had suffered a head wound.

Cooper, 22, of Quaker Lane, Little Horton, Bradford, was arrested at 10pm on December 31 last year outside Q Gardens in the city’s Stadium Road, prosecutor Harry Crowson said.

He told Bradford Crown Court today that Cooper was topless and bleeding after being ejected from the pub for fighting. He was being pushed away from the building and trying to get back in.

He was abusive to the officers at the scene and gave conflicting accounts of how he had been injured.

He was handcuffed and continued to be obstructive and abusive, threatening to bite the officers’ noses and spit in their faces.

Mr Crowson said Cooper was also racially insulting as he tried to stop the officers putting him into their vehicle.

He was taken to BRI where he verbally abused the medical staff treating him.

After he was put on to a hospital bed, he spat on the officer’s leg and said ‘charge me’ and they did.

Cooper pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence, by using threatening or abusive words or behaviour, and to assaulting the officer in her role as an emergency worker.

He had 12 previous convictions that included similar offending and he was in breach of a six-month suspended sentence order for obstructing a police officer, Mr Crowson said.

In mitigation, Cooper’s barrister, Giles Grant, conceded that he had assaulted and abused frontline police officers in breach of a suspended sentence order. The female officer had been absolutely disgusted when he spat on her leg but she had not been physically harmed.

Cooper’s offending was linked to his binge drinking, the court was told.

He had suffered a series of tragic bereavements from childhood and there was a pattern of emotional difficulties in his life.

Recorder Anthony Kelbrick said Cooper had a dreadful record, especially of offending towards people in authority. The police officers did not deserve the treatment he had meted out to them.

He was jailed for four months and the suspended sentence order was activated consecutively, making a total prison sentence of ten months.