A WOMAN who spat into the eyes and open mouth of a supermarket worker at Charlestown during a global pandemic and period of intense panic around communicable disease has been sent for a mental health assessment.
Jozy-Ann Hurley, 52, was expected to be sentenced in Belmont Local Court on Monday after pleading guilty last week to two counts of common assault stemming from an ugly incident at Charlestown Square.
But instead, Magistrate Ron Maiden ordered Hurley be assessed at a mental health facility. Hurley, who was banned from Coles at Charlestown last Saturday, returned on Tuesday and was being followed out of the store when she spat three times into the supermarket worker's face.
She also repeatedly slapped a security guard.
The Newcastle Herald revealed last week that Hurley had told police, apparently without irony, that she thought the supermarket worker wasn't practicing social distancing while following her out of the shopping centre and feared that as a result she could of contracted coronavirus.
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