Walsall Manor Hospital patient assaulted pregnant nurse, spat and set fire to table
Hospital workers left scared by defendant’s aggressive behaviour
A patient attacked staff including a pregnant nurse before setting fire to a garden table at Walsall Manor Hospital.
Emma Williams, a former carer, shouted and swore at nursing and healthcare assistants when she was admitted on July 20 and 23. Her bad behaviour included verbally abusing a non-binary worker despite the defendant herself being non-binary, spitting and hurling items including a tea cup and a walking frame across wards.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that matters came to a head on July 23 when the defendant, aged 46 and of Walsall, attacked a pregnant nurse and a healthcare assistant and again spat at the staff who trying to help her.
Sally Cairns, prosecuting, said when Williams was spoken to about her actions she replied “I don’t care” before urinating on her bed, then going outside where she set fire to a wooden table and her clothing. The ward staff used water to douse the large fire.
In her victim impact statement a ward assistant stated: “I felt scared to go to work. I do the job to care for sick people” “I find such behaviour like Emma Williams’ sad. I don’t go to work to be treated like that.”
Williams, of no fixed address, has two previous convictions for assaulting emergency workers including in November 2024 when she was jailed for five months and in June 2026 she was jailed for one month for similar offences.
Sharon Bahia, defending, said the defendant had “significant difficulties”, a history of mental health issues and drug addiction and the latest crimes happened when she was not receiving the correct medication and that she was doing much better in prison on remand.
She added that the defendant's mother Vicky was receiving end of life care.
Sentencing her Judge John Edwards said: “I’m concerned that she has a lot of difficulties which would come under the mental health guidelines. She was once a carer herself which is ironic. She has already been on remand for four months and under the early release scheme she would have served the equivalent of 12 months in that time.”
For admitting arson, affray and assaulting the hospital workers Williams was jailed for a total of 16 months, meaning she will only serve four more weeks in custody to give the probation service time to organise accommodation in the community.
This week 650 more offenders started to leave jails in England and Wales in the third phase of the government's plan to end the prison population crisis. The group included offenders serving up to three years and two months for crimes.
Under the new rules, they are leaving jail after serving no more than a third of their sentence behind bars, rather than a half of the terms. So far around 1,350 offenders have left jail early since October 1 under the first two phases of the scheme.