A 53-year-old fetishist from York yesterday became the first NHS patient to be jailed for harassing medical staff under a tougher line ordered by John Reid, the health secretary.
Norman Hutchins was sentenced to three years in prison by Leeds crown court and put under a permanent antisocial behaviour order to stop further misbehaviour on all NHS premises in England and Wales.
The NHS security management service said Hutchins had caused harassment, alarm and distress in 47 incidents last year. It told York magistrates in June that he had a fetish for surgical masks and was in the habit of asking NHS organisations to provide them for amateur dramatics or fancy dress parties.
After gaining access to NHS premises, he became abusive and engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviour. Alleged incidents included drawing a knife on hospital workers, touching nurses and unlawfully entering an operating theatre. The court sentenced him yesterday after he pleaded guilty to six counts of deception, one of affray and one of possession of a knife that he used to threaten an NHS security guard.
It confirmed an interim Asbo, placed on Hutchins by magistrates in June. The security service said it was the first ban on a patient entering any hospital, medical centre or dentist's surgery except under strictly controlled conditions.
The conviction was the first since Mr Reid ordered a crackdown on violence against NHS staff in December 2003. He was responding to a report that 116,000 incidents of physical aggression or verbal abuse against NHS employees over a period of 12 months had resulted in only 50 prosecutions.
The security management service said it was planning to bring further cases:
· A man is due to appear in court at the end of February on a charge of possession of two bladed articles. He is alleged to have threatened an ambulance crew in Wolverhampton.
· A patient's relative is due to appear at a London court for sentencing on public order offences. He was charged with abusing and threatening NHS workers at a mental health trust in east London.
· A man is due to appear before Sutton Coldfield magistrates next week on charges of actual bodily harm against a nurse and security guard at the Good Hope hospital.
Jim Gee, chief executive of the NHS security management service, said: "Hutchins harassed NHS employees on 47 separate occasions during a five-month period. NHS staff should not have to tolerate such behaviour from anybody.
"Should it be necessary, we will take similar action again to ensure NHS staff are safe and secure. We are determined to protect NHS staff from violence and abuse."
The NHS is training 750,000 staff in techniques of conflict resolution and testing a new alarm system, using mobile phone technology, to pinpoint the location of an incident and record evidence.
In June, York magistrates were told that Hutchins had been misbehaving on NHS premises for at least 15 years, but his conduct had recently deteriorated. Several hospitals took out injunctions against him, but he moved across NHS trust boundaries and caused trouble in at least 12 areas, as far afield as Devon and Dundee.
