A YOUTH involved in a casualty department ruckus was not happy with the attention he had received and was worried he might be bleeding to death, a court heard.

Burnley magistrates were told how Simon Sharif Spencer, 22, who had earlier been pushed through a window, struggled with police, had been CS gassed and was knelt on by a nursing sister as officers tried to handcuff him.

His solicitor told how he was taken to the police station, rather than having his wounds stitched, and he now bore the scars, and unsightly ones at that, after the night's trouble at Burnley General Hospital in May 1998.

Spencer had originally been given 200 hours community service after earlier being for a conviction of common assault, affray and police assault and appeared for breach of the three orders.

The defendant, of Moorhead Street, Colne, avoided jail, even though the bench told him he had come very close. He was fined £450 but was allowed to continue with the orders, of which he has completed 56 hours.