Man with surgical equipment fetish jailed

A man banned from all medical premises in England and Wales has been jailed for a series of attacks in a hospital. It is the third time Norman Hutchins, 61, who has a fetish for surgical equipment, has been locked up for violence linked to medical establishments.

He was given the ban for threatening a security guard at York Hospital with a knife and pestering staff at dental and medical clinics up and down the country as part of his obsessive quest for surgical masks.



Hutchins, now of no fixed address, and formerly of Clifton, York, was given a three-year sentence in 2005 for the York and surgical mask offences and a two-year sentence at Bradford Crown Court in 2007 for violence towards medical staff and obtaining medical items under false pretences. His latest offences were committed at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds.

At Leeds Crown Court, he was jailed for three years for three breaches of an antisocial behaviour order (ASBO). The ASBO made at York Crown Court banned Hutchins from going to any NHS or medical establishment anywhere in England and Wales unless in genuine need of treatment and only after informing staff of his true identity.