Heroin addict who spat in officer’s face jailed for six months

The 24-year-old, with an address at Waring Street, admitted a raft of offences linked to what his lawyer described as a chronic dependency on illicit substances.

Belfast Magistrates' Court heard he entered the hospital on the Crumlin Road under the influence of heroin on January 27 this year.

Mulholland went to a staff room on the fourth floor, where he stole car keys, a laptop computer, biscuits and a pint of milk.

He was detained and searched, but started to shout and swear in a hallway.

A Crown lawyer said that after being taken into PSNI custody he spat in one officer's face and kicked another on the leg.

In an earlier incident, police located Mulholland and a co-accused inside a bakery at Donegall Square West late at night in September 2018

"Both stated they had been in the toilet using drugs when the shop had been locked," a prosecutor said.

Some of the products on display were consumed before officers arrived to arrest the pair.

Mulholland was spotted again in August 2019, slumped over in a chair outside a cafe on Fountain Street.

At the police station he produced a piece of tissue containing six wraps of suspected heroin and five Pregabalin pills.

In October that year Mulholland was arrested over a suspected incident at toilets in the Victoria Square shopping complex.

While in custody he produced a small bottle from his anus area containing Pregabalin pills, according to the prosecution.

A week later he was arrested at Queen's Square in the city for having a quantity of herbal cannabis.

Police detained him once more on November 24 last year, when he had Pregabalin tablets stashed in a newspaper on Castle Street.

Mulholland pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, disorderly behaviour, assault on police, theft, possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply, having Class B and C drugs, and begging.

Defence counsel Sean Mullan told the court his client suffered family bereavements before developing an addiction to heroin and cocaine.

"Most of these offences involve either using drugs or trying to get money to score more drugs," the barrister said.

"He has been diagnosed with a chronic drug dependency."

Imposing a total sentence of six months, District Judge Mark McGarrity gave Mulholland credit for his guilty pleas.