A PSYCHOPATHIC patient smashed a courtroom door window when he was sent to York Crown Court for attacking hospital staff with a table leg.

William Hadad, 36, stopped proceedings in two courts at York Magistrates Court by his outburst.

The patient was furious that district judge Michael Rosenberg had ruled that his night-time assaults at the medium secure Stockton Hall Hospital were too serious for him to handle.

Hadad shouted abuse at him before being taken out of the building by a back entrance.

As he left, he smashed the window at the top of the door of an adjoining courtroom. The trial there was stopped while the glass was swept up.

Hadad made so much disturbance in the corridor, Mr Rosenberg had to halt the next case in his court temporarily because he could not hear the defence lawyer speak.

The patient at the medium security hospital in north York had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing actual bodily harm to two staff. He was committed for sentence to York Crown Court.

Prosecuting, Valerie McMinn said that as most patients slept on October 14 at 2.30am, Hadad repeatedly asked two staff members, a man and a woman, for a cigarette.

They refused because a hospital rule forbids smoking after lights-out.

But Hadad persisted, and pulled a table leg out from under his jacket. He hit the man about the head and the woman on the arm with it. The man needed hospital treatment and the woman suffered bruising.

Hadad claimed to police afterwards he attacked the staff because they were ignoring him.

A psychiatric report before the court diagnosed Hadad as suffering from schizophrenic and psychopathic disorders and recommended making a secure hospital order.

Hadad said he "was not bothered" about being locked up in hospital because he was already was.