Woman who punched doctor and assaulted security guards spared jail

by Q Radio News

A woman who punched a doctor in the chest at a busy emergency department escaped jail today (wed) when a judge suspended her four month jail sentence.

Freeing 27-year-old Krystal Anderson at Newtownards Magistrates Court, District Judge Mark Hamill said that usually “as night follows day,” anyone who assaults medical staff “go to prison.”

“As night follows day that will happen except when there is a substantial mental health background,” warned Judge Hamill adding that Anderson has such a background. 

At an earlier hearing Anderson, with an address at Flush Park in Lisburn, had admitted assaulting a doctor and two security guards and using disorderly behaviour at the Ulster Hospital on 26 October 2016. 

A prosecuting lawyer told the court today (wed) police spoke to staff at the Ulster A&E department where a doctor told them he had been helping Anderson when she “punched him in the chest.

Outside the busy department, she lashed out at two security guards, kicking and punching them before “throwing herself in the road,” swearing at them that they were “b*******” and she hoped they “died a horrible death.”

One guard reported how Anderson had kicked him in the back but he was not hurt as he had been wearing protective gear. 

Arrested and interviewed, Anderson said she couldn’t remember anything but accepted it was her on the CCTV footage lashing out and “apologised for her actions,” blaming mental health and her alcohol addiction. 

Defence Solicitor Clive Fullerton said that in the year since Judge Hamill deferred passing sentence, Anderson had been put on probation by a Crown Court Judge so her issues with mental health and alcohol were already being tackled. 

He submitted that given the ongoing order, “you may consider leaving something hanging over her head.”

The two year probation order was put in place last August after Anderson admitted to perverting the course of justice by making a false allegation of rape. 

In that case, Belfast Crown Court heard that in June 2016 police received a report from Anderson that she had been the victim of a serious sexual assault, claiming the man raped her in the early hours of the morning in Carrickfergus. 

She was taken to Antrim Area Hospital with cuts to her arm which were later deemed to be self-inflicted.

The man she named as her rapist was arrested, spent eight hours in police custody and given the nature of the allegations, had to endure the “humiliating process” of “intimate testing.”

The following day, Anderson rang police and said she wanted to withdraw her complaint against the man but it was not until 15 July 2016, while being treated in the Ulster Hospital, that Anderson admitted to police that she had made a “false allegation of rape”.

Asked why, she replied: “I try to push people to their limits....but I don’t know why.”

In court today (wed), Judge Hamill warned Anderson that if she reoffended in the next two years, “the starting point will be four months [custody] and that will be addd to.”

“She is on probation from the Crown Court for a serious matter so I do not want to interfere with that but you cannot behave like this in a hospital, you can’t behave like hid anywhere but particularly a hospital,” declared the judge.