An angry Essex man who felt his wife wasn’t receiving proper medical care threatened to go to Colchester Hospital with a gun and “hold it to a nurse’s head and shoot people”, it has been alleged.

Sixty-two-year-old Reginald Shorter 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, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

During a conversation with an NHS worker Shorter allegedly became increasingly irate after she said she couldn’t deal with his complaint and he hadn’t “let her get a word in edgeways” when she tried to calm him down, said Emma Nash, prosecuting.

She said that when the woman suggested he brought his wife back to Colchester Hospital, where she would arrange for her to be seen by a doctor, Shorter allegedly 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.

“She didn’t want to hear comments like that and when he started being abusive she hung up,” said Miss Nash.

The woman reported what Shorter had allegedly said to her colleagues in Colchester Hospital Accident and Emergency Department.

“As a result they were caused anxiety and were frightened of him attending with a gun as they had no idea if he would carry out the threat he’d made,” said Miss Nash.

The matter was reported to the police and officers went to Shorter’s home later the same day to arrest him.

“His wife clearly was in some pain and clearly Mr Shorter was genuinely concerned about her,” said Miss Nash.

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.

Shorter, of Knox Road, Clacton-on -Sea, has denied sending an electronic communication containing a threat with intent to cause distress or anxiety on May 12, 2020.

The trial continues.