Well-to-do woman fined after hospital dirty protest

A well-to-do woman has been fined after a post-work evening drink with friends turned into a dirty protest at a hospital. Ellen Wardropper, of St James Road, innocently began her night at The Crown pub in Sutton but ended up being arrested for threatening to throw her own faeces at St Helier Hospital staff.

Wardropper, 56, had agreed to meet friends at the pub on February 25 where she drank a glass-and-a-half of wine. But she then, Sutton Magistrates’ Court were told, skipped dinner and had more wine. The wife of a civil servant in Abu Dhabi was found drunk and slumped in the street by police later that night who took her to St Helier.



Within an hour, Wardropper had stripped naked from the waist down and had also urinated and defecated on herself. After she threatened to throw her faeces at hospital staff police were called. As officers tried to calm her down and take her to the police station she twice kicked a PC Pollock.

Wardropper pleaded guilty to be drunk and disorderly and assaulting a police officer. Magistrates, who described Wardropper’s behaviour as “disgusting”, handed her a nine-month conditional discharge and fined her £191.