Marbella hospital emergency patient jailed for assaulting nurse

The incident happened shortly after 7am, while the patient was waiting at the emergency department. At one point she entered the area reserved for healthcare staff to demand that she be seen "immediately". The nurse on duty asked her to wait her turn.

Not satisfied with the answer, the defendant returned a few minutes later and began recording the nurse's refusal to attend to her with her mobile phone.

As the nurse tried to stop the recording, the patient struck her left hand with the mobile phone. She then grabbed the nurse by the wrist, shook her violently and pinned her against the wall until another member of medical staff intervened.

As a result of the assault, the nurse suffered bruising to her left wrist and right shoulder, as well as a hairline fracture to the second phalanx of her left hand and a sprained wrist.

The injuries required medical treatment and took 45 days to heal, which kept the nurse away from her work duties, although she suffered no long-term effects.

The defence appealed against the conviction, arguing, firstly, that the right to a fair trial had been breached because the court had refused to admit several pieces of medical evidence.

These included statements from two doctors who treated the nurse and the submission of X-rays to verify the fracture in her finger. The defence contended that these pieces of evidence would have made it possible to challenge the victim's account and clarify the discrepancies between the medical reports.

The court rejected that argument. It pointed out that the right to adduce evidence does not imply that any proposed procedural step must be admitted and emphasised that a lack of defence rights only exists when the evidence that was refused is in fact decisive in altering the outcome of the proceedings.

The ruling also highlights that the forensic doctor explained during the trial that the crack in the finger was "consistent with a blow or a slap" such as that described by the victim, as well as with a forceful grip.

The court also dismissed the second ground of appeal. The defendant stated that the nurse had made contradictory statements and that the testimony of the colleague who had witnessed the scene lacked credibility.

However, the court concluded that the assessment made by the trial judge was entirely correct and found no "error or lack of logic" in reasoning.

According to the judge, the healthcare worker's account remained essentially consistent throughout the proceedings. The minor discrepancies between her various statements, far from undermining her credibility, "actually made her account appear more genuine".

Furthermore, the other nurse, who witnessed the assault, described how the defendant had entered "in a highly agitated and aggressive state", attempted to film the incident on her mobile phone and struck her colleague.

The court has concluded that the appeal was nothing more than "a futile attempt to replace the judge's impartial view with the self-serving account of the facts" put forward by the defendant.

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