A KNIFEMAN who injured three security guards in a terrifying attack at York Hospital has been jailed for four years.

Daniel Meason refused to leave hospital grounds despite repeated orders to do so, then lashed out at guards with a knife.

When one of them managed to disarm him, Meason, 25, bit the man. A second guard later told police it was the “scariest” incident he had ever been involved in and said he had feared throughout the attack for his and his colleagues’ lives.

All three were injured; two had cut fingers and one a broken hand.

The attack happened at about 11.30pm on July 22, near a science department at the Wigginton Road site, after Meason had “made a nuisance of himself” for more than an hour, Helen Wheatley, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

It was the third time Meason had been caught with a knife in public, said Ms Wheatley.

On an earlier occasion, he had attacked shop security staff who caught him shoplifting.

Judge Roger Ibbotson told him: “It is time you learnt how dangerous producing a knife and waving it around can be. You have shown little or no remorse. You still think of yourself as the victim in this.”

Meason, of Chesterfield Road South, in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm, actual bodily harm and assault and carrying a knife in public.

While he was sentenced, Meason called out: “He was strangling me when I bit him.”

His barrister, Emma Bennett, said Meason had himself been injured in the struggle and felt he had been attacked by the three guards.

He had been passing through York on his way home to Mansfield and had “taken refuge” in the hospital grounds after an “incident” in the city centre, she said, but she did not say what the incident was.

He had not intended to harm the three guards and his actions had been reckless, not premeditated, she said.