A 23-year-old Indian-origin man in the UK has been sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for lying about having Covid-19 and spitting at a police custody officer, in the first such case heard in a British court.

Karan Singh, from Croydon in south London, pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court to three counts of assault on an emergency worker, use of threatening/abusive/insulting words/behaviour to cause harassment /alarm/distress and possession of the Class B or banned drug cannabis.

He was sentenced last week to four months’ imprisonment and also an additional four months’ sentence, to run consecutively, for being in breach of a suspended sentence — making his total sentence eight months.

“It is never acceptable to spit at an emergency worker, whether it is during these unprecedented times or not,” said Superintendent Dan Knowles, of South Area Command at the Metropolitan Police. “Singh carrying out this vile act and then lying about having coronavirus was a deplorable thing to do,” he said.

On March 14, uniformed officers were on patrol when they spotted Singh sitting in a car in a driveway in Croydon. They recognised him as being disqualified from driving and so they approached the car and spoke to him. Singh denied he was disqualified from driving and stated that he had been given his licence back.

As officers were speaking to him, they noticed a strong smell of cannabis coming from him and the vehicle and asked him about the smell and he admitted smoking cannabis. As one of the officers began explaining the grounds for a search under the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act, Singh attempted to start the engine of the vehicle and make off from police.

However, the vehicle stalled and officers were able to detain him. They found a snap bag of cannabis in the driver’s foot well and Singh admitted to having cannabis for personal use.

He was arrested on suspicion of possession of a Class B drug.