A YOUNG man hurled threats and racist abuse at a Birmingham railway station – after being given a suspended prison sentence for a similar incident at a hospital.
And after hearing of the risk Ryhan Ali is believed to pose, a judge at Warwick Crown Court ordered he should be detained at a secure psychiatric unit.
The 24-year-old of Leam Terrace, Leamington, was made subject to a hospital order under the Mental Health Act, with a restriction which means he can only be released with the approval of a mental health tribunal.
He had pleaded guilty to two offences of racially aggravated threatening words and behaviour.
Prosecutor Andrew Wilkins said Ali had a history of racially aggravated offences, including making hoax calls to the emergency services and threatening behaviour.
In May last year Ali, then of Clopton Street, Stratford, was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years for three racially-aggravated offences.
But ten days before that sentence was imposed at the crown court, he had already committed a further offence at Hall Green railway station in Birmingham, said Mr Wilkins.
He had made calls to the emergency services which had led to concerns about his health, but when the police arrived at the station he denied making the calls.
He was asked to leave the station and was put in a taxi, but he then made several more calls to West Midlands Police in which he used abusive racist and threatening language.
Appearing at Birmingham Crown Court in June, the judge there deferred sentence after hearing that by then Ali had been given the suspended sentence at Warwick Crown Court over similar incidents at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Warwick Hospital.
Then on June 12 Ali turned up at Birmingham International station where he complained of feeling faint before racially abusing staff who helped him.
Spencer Stephens, defending, said two psychiatrists who had examined Ali agree he was suffering from a mental condition of a degree that would justify him being subject to a hospital order with restrictions on when he could be released.
The court heard that since being at a psychiatric unit, Ali had been responding to treatment, but had also shown violence towards other residents and members of staff.
And although his convictions had involved threats rather than actual violence, there were concerns that he might act on those threats in the future.
So Judge Anthony Potter made Ali subject to a hospital order with a restriction order – but ordered his suspended sentence should also continue.
