A DISTRICT judge has jailed an alcoholic who breached an antisocial behaviour order (Asbo) banning him from abusing NHS staff less than 48 hours after it was made.

On Monday Oxford magistrates imposed the Asbo on Raymond Clarke, pictured, of Medhurst Way, Littlemore, and also banned him from having open containers of alcohol on hospital grounds.

But on Wednesday a police officer arrested him for drinking at a bus stop outside the John Radcliffe Hospital, as well as two earlier breaches of an interim Asbo made in September.

Both orders ban Clarke – who has 115 offences on his criminal record - from using abusive, insulting, threatening or sexually explicit language towards hospital staff or paramedics for two years.

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At Monday’s hearing, Oxford City Council solicitor Jeremy Franklin said between February 19 and July 30 last year the 53-year-old started calling, and turning up at, local hospitals “almost on a daily basis”.

Clarke’s interim order was made on September 15 last year and he breached it on September 25 and September 29 by swearing at medical staff.

Yesterday solicitor Tim Baker, defending, said: “Mr Clarke is a very unwell man. He has a number of ongoing health conditions, the most prevalent of which is a heart condition.”

But District Judge Tim Pattinson branded Clarke a “menace” and told him: “This is a case of extreme abuse of members of the NHS who work extremely hard.’’ He sentenced him to six weeks in prison and activated a four-week suspended sentence he was given last year, making a total of 10 weeks in prison. He must also pay an £80 victims’ surcharge.


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