A man who coughed at a police officer and said 'coronavirus' after he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly has been put behind bars.
Otis Smith, 31, was also convicted of resisting arrest after officers had to deploy CS spray following an incident in the city centre on Wednesday night.
Police had been called to Castlefield Bowl shortly before 10pm on May 20, to reports that around 100 people were gathered there.
Officers asked the crowd to disperse, and while most complied, Smith, who was holding a bottle of rum, told officers to 'f**k off'.
They asked him to leave and attempted to take the bottle of rum out of his hands, at which point, the situation was described in court as 'having gone sour'.
Officers attempted to arrest Smith for being drunk and disorderly, but he resisted. They eventually had to use CS spray in order to place him in handcuffs.
Smith was taken to a police station, which was not named in court. While at the front desk, he coughed in the direction of a police officer, who was standing two metres away, and said 'coronavirus'.
Smith admitted assaulting an emergency worker, resisting arrest and being drunk and disorderly when he appeared at Manchester Magistrate's Court on Thursday.
The court heard that Smith, who was on bail for other offences at the time, felt he was being treated differently to other people, because officers recognised him from dealing with him previously.
Sentencing, District Judge John Temperley said the offences were aggravated by Smith's record, which is 'littered with offences of a similar nature', including assaulting a security guard in Primark who challenged him about drunken behaviour.
He said: "Any offence involving coughing, spitting and the like, particularly making reference to the current coronavirus pandemic, warrants immediate custody."
The officers were left with bruising following Smith's arrest.
In a victim impact statement to the court, the officer who was coughed at said Smith was more resistant to arrest than anyone he had ever come across in his career.
He described how he is living apart from his family to keep them safe while he carries out his job.
He said: "As a police officer, I am aware of the risk involved, but I should be able to carry out my duties without risk of violence."
Smith, of Wilmslow Road, Manchester, was given 20 weeks custody for assaulting an emergency worker and a consecutive three week sentence for resisting arrest.
District Judge Temperley also revoked a community order which had previously been imposed for an offence in January and instead added an additional three weeks to Smith's sentence.
