CORONAVIRUS: Police chief welcomes tough sentence for prisoner who said he had virus then breathed into officer's face

Chief Inspector James Trafford of Boston police described the attack on the officer as 'repugnant'.

A man was jailed at the weekend after telling a police officer he had coronavirus and then breathing on him, saying: “I hope you’re infected”.

The Fosdyke man’s crime has been branded as repugnant by a senior Boston police officer, who said acts like this would be stamped down upon severely and swiftly

Luke Courtney, 29, of Snaith Avenue, Fosdyke, was fast-tracked to appear before a virtual magistrates court on Saturday after the offence happened in the early hours of Friday and was sentenced to three months in prison.

CI Trafford said he felt the sentence was a fair and justified one.

“This was repugnant. It’s pretty low isn’t it. For that reason we are keen to stamp on any sort of behaviour like this,” he said.

Officers were called to Fosdyke at 2am on Friday to reports of a disturbance. Courtney was arrested for breach of the peace and was taken into custody at Boston Police Station.

While there, he told the officer with him that he had Covid 19, and then breathed into his face from a very close distance.

CI Trafford said: “This man did it with intent and said I hope you’re infected with it.

“The officer was obviously not happy. Our officers have families and kids, and obviously his biggest worry was he might be bringing something home with him.

“The trauma this puts on someone that is just going out to try and protect people is awful.”

Courtney was examined by the medical professional at the station and showed no symptoms, and a check of national databases showed no record of him being tested, although he claimed he had used an at home self-test.

“It is unlikely he had it but obviously the threat was there, and it was an assault on an emergency worker because he basically stuck his face in the officer’s and breathed all over him,” CI Trafford said.

“The vast majority of the public are complying with the new rules, but there are obviously the odd few that need to be dealt with and they will be dealt with quite severely and swiftly as in this case,” he said.

He said there was an occasional issue of lack of understanding, saying Boston has some specific communications issues because of the language barrier.

“We are getting the odd case of not complying with the guidelines, and again we are very keen to engage and explain before taking any further action, however there have been a handful of cases where we have issued notices to people,” he said.

“We are really grateful to vast majority of the public. There is just the odd case we are having to intervene with. But we need to make an example of the odd one or two so we don’t get behaviour like this.”