Carer who hit Shropshire patient is jailed for 10 months
A carer who threatened to "knock out" a mentally ill patient and then punched him at the Shropshire hospital where he worked is today beginning the first week of a 10-month prison sentence.
Tim Blackwood, 53, attacked the man, who has severe learning difficulties, as staff tried to separate the pair at Ashley House hospital, near Market Drayton.
Blackwood, from Fegg Hayes near Stoke-on-Trent, had not mentioned his criminal past when he was given the job and had been working at the site for only eight weeks at the time.
Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard how Blackwood flipped after the patient threw a clipboard across the lounge within Bromley Ward and shouted at Blackwood that he would "knock him out".
The defendant responded with the same threat before swearing and punching the man in the ribcage in September last year.
He will now serve 10 months in prison for ill-treating a patient and six months for fraud, to run concurrently, after admitting both charges.
Sentencing Blackwood, Judge David Fletcher said: "You were in charge of some of the most vulnerable members of our society. You used foul language before punching a patient in the back and you were not provoked."
Shocked staff testified against the support worker during the hearing while Blackwood claimed he felt threatened by the vulnerable patient at Ashley House home.
The court heard how Blackwood claimed he punched the patient because he felt threatened.
But he later admitted that he reacted "inappropriately" and "in the heat of the moment".
Paul Cliff, defending, said: "His real failure is that nurses aren't expected to react to any provocation.
"He's a man who has suffered from stress and depression for a while.
"He was never cut out for this kind of work at this time and should not have been in that job.
"The defendant has spent a lifetime in work and is now the principal carer for his 87-year-old mother."
The Huntercombe Group, which runs Ashley House, suspended and then sacked Blackwood.
