Student nurse let down after case dropped by PPS

A student nurse said she feels unsafe after being attacked on shift and the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) dropped her case.

Katie, a 20-year-old student nurse, said she thought the patient “was going to kill” her by strangulation on a night shift at Craigavon Area Hospital in August.

The PPS said it understood this was a “deeply distressing incident” and it recognises its decision not to prosecute is “disappointing” – and its decision was taken only after the most “careful consideration” of available evidence and legal issues.

Katie was helping a male patient get back into bed and he grabbed her by the back of her neck and tried to push her to the floor.

“I was trying to scream and I couldn’t make any noise because he was squeezing so hard – I couldn’t breathe,” she told BBC’s the Nolan Show.

“I had my legs spread out a bit so he wasn’t able to get me down – I said ‘please let go of me’ but they tried again to push me down,” she said.

Then Katie said he put his hand around her neck.

“It was mostly his thumb and that part of your hand (palm) and the rest of his fingers around the side of my neck.

“I was trying to scream and I couldn’t make any noise because he was squeezing so hard – I couldn’t breathe.

“In my head I was thinking ‘he’s going to kill me’,” she added.

It was only after a healthcare assistant screamed out that help arrived.

The PPS initially said it would prosecute the case but later decided that the defendant’s medical condition meant a conviction was unlikely.