An Essex man who caused Colchester Hospital to go into a full security lockdown for several hours after he threatened to go there with a gun and “hold it to a nurse’s head and shoot people” because he was upset at his ill wife’s care has been found guilty.

Before Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday (June 16) was 62-year-old Reginald Shorter, of Knox Road, Clacton-on-Sea, who was given a conditional discharge.

He had pleaded not guilty to sending an electronic communication containing a threat with intent to cause distress or anxiety on May 12, 2020, but was convicted by a jury by a 10-2 majority verdict after a three-day trial.

Sentencing him to a two-year conditional discharge and ordering him to pay £150 compensation and £100 costs, Recorder Jeremy Benson accepted Shorter had been under pressure at the time of the offence.

“I don’t think for one moment you would have carried out the threat,“ said the judge.

“You must understand that although you were very frustrated, and you may or may not have had proper cause to be frustrated, and clearly your wife was ill it was a very difficult time for the NHS as well and they didn’t need idle threats because you didn’t feel you were getting what you thought you were entitled to."

The court heard that Shorter had contacted the patient liaison service (PALS) for Colchester and Ipswich hospital to complain about his wife’s treatment after she was sent home “in agony” without treatment for a blockage during the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

During a conversation with an NHS worker, Shorter became increasingly irate and when she suggested he brought his wife back to Colchester Hospital where she would arrange for her to be seen by a doctor Shorter told her that if he had to come back to the hospital again he would get a gun and hold it to a nurse’s head and “shoot it off” until he was taken seriously.

The matter was reported to the police and when officers went to Shorter’s home later the same day to arrest him they found his wife was in pain, said Emma Nash, prosecuting.

Giving evidence, Shorter said he had made a number of previous hospital visits with his wife and had spent from 3pm to 11pm the previous day at Colchester Hospital with her when she’d been in “enormous” pain.

He said she had been diagnosed with a blockage but had been sent home without anything being done because of concerns about her catching coronavirus if she was admitted to hospital.

Shorter said that he hadn’t had access to a gun and hadn’t intended what he said to be taken as a threat. “I was just venting my anger. I wasn’t going to do it,” he said.

He said that he’d mentioned a gun in the context of him asking what he needed to do get medical treatment for his wife and he had no intention of holding a gun to a nurse’s head or shooting anyone.