4:11pm Monday 27th October 2008
A MAN who made 115 nuisance 999 telephone calls to police and the ambulance service has been detained under a hospital order.
Michael Sefton also annoyed neighbours in flats for disabled people by playing loud music, activating his alarm and throwing bottles and mirrors out of the windows.
After one call because he was "lonely" he armed himself with two knives, believing police officers were Russians, said Charles Hardy, prosecuting at Worcester Crown Court.
Sefton, aged 45, of Monks Close, Pershore, pleaded guilty to six counts of causing a public nuisance and one of affray.
Judge John Cavell said he had made phone calls "on an entirely false basis" while suffering from mental illness.
After reading reports from two psychiatrists, he ordered that Sefton be freed from custody to reside at Abbey House hospital in Hanley Road, Malvern Wells.
Sefton will be treated there for an initial six months. Doctors will decide when it is safe for him to be allowed back home.
Disabled Sefton, who came into court in a wheelchair after spending five months in jail on remand, made 70 calls to police and 45 to the ambulance service between September last year and this February, said Mr Hardy.
He complained to police his girlfriend had left him and claimed he was threatened by children and neighbours.
In one bizarre call, he invited police to his flat to see what a good cleaning job he had done.
He lied to ambulancemen that he had taken an overdose. But they saw him hopping from a chair to a bed through a window and found no tablets.
In other calls, he wanted a lift home and falsely insisted he was suffering chest pains.
OnJune 6 this year, Sefton carried out the affray after both services attended the home of a friend.
Sefton was found sitting on a sofa with a six-inch knife and threatened to kill a police officer. But he threw the blade and a second knife down when ordered.
Mr Hardy applied for a Criminal ASBO to protect neighbours from behaviour exacerbated by drug taking.
But the judge said Sefton would be in another environment for some time and such an order was premature.
David Taylor, defending, said he was responsible for chaotic, anti-social behaviour but was not a public danger.
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