A sheriff has blasted police for offering a hospital troublemaker a fixed penalty fine over an incident that has now left him facing jail.
Brian Halliburton followed staff around filming them in the A&E department at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital before claiming they were “neglecting patients”.
And when he was asked to stop he lost the plot – shouting and swearing at nurses and hospital staff as sick patients were treated nearby.
Halliburton made off before police arrived on the scene, and it took almost three months for them to catch up with him
Fiscal depute Vicki Bell told Dundee Sheriff Court that when they did officers offered him a fixed penalty fine – which he refused to accept.
Sheriff Alastair Brown said: “That is extraordinary given the location of this offence. Prison has to be a possibility.
“I have no idea what was going on in the head of the officer who decided to do that.
“People who behave in this way at A&E can expect a potential prison sentence.”
Miss Bell added: “The police report doesn’t say why he was deemed suitable.”
Describing the incident, the prosecutor said: “It was 1am when the accused approached the charge nurse an stated that a patient in the waiting area required to be taken to the toilet.
“The charge nurse said she would deal with the male shortly. Thirty seconds later he began to shout out about patients being neglected.
“He took his mobile phone out and gave the impression he had started video recording everything.
“A staff nurse came in and took this patient to the toilet and asked the accused to turn his phone off but he refused.
“Accused then walked to the reception area and was shouting at the staff nurse, charge nurse and two receptionists who were there that they were ‘f*****g idiots’.
“He was also shouting about them neglecting patients.
“He was asked to leave three or four times and was told security had been called.
“He walked to the exit shouting that the nurse was a ‘f*****g bam’.
“Police arrived at 1.35am but he was gone.”
Halliburton, 34, of Perth Road, Dundee, pleaded guilty on summary complaint to a charge of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner at Ninewells Hospital on October 4 last year.
Defence solicitor Larry Flynn said: “He’s under no illusions about how the courts deal with such matters.”
Sheriff Brown deferred sentence until next month for social work background reports and released Halliburton meantime.
A spokesman for Police Scotland said: “Police Scotland acknowledges the comments made by the Sheriff and we will review the circumstances to identify if there are any learning points.”
