Lucy Hogan Dummett: Labrador woman guilty of spitting on cop three times near Toowoomba

A young Gold Coast woman who was intoxicated and suffering withdrawal symptoms spat on a cop when emergency services were trying to transport her for a mental assessment, a court has heard.

Labrador woman Lucy Hogan Dummett, 23. Picture: Facebook

A young Gold Coast woman who was intoxicated and suffering withdrawal symptoms spat in a cop’s face when officers and paramedics were trying to transport her for a mental assessment, a court has heard.

Labrador woman Lucy Hogan Dummett, 23, appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on March 4 where she pleaded guilty to serious assault of a police officer by spitting, obstructing police, and wilful damage of police property.

The offences were all committed about 1am on May 4 last year outside Hogan Dummett’s grandmother’s house at Pittsworth, a township southwest of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs.

Hogan Dummett’s grandmother, concerned about the defendant’s behaviour, called emergency services in response to a disturbance.

Paramedics and officers detained the defendant for the purposes of an emergency examination authority under the Public Health Act 2005 – allowing for transportation without the subject’s consent to a ‘treatment or care place’ – but Hogan Dummett resisted furiously.

A police constable was first kicked in the chest by the defendant while she was on a stretcher in the ambulance, then, when he moved further up to assist a colleague, Hogan Dummett gathered saliva and phlegm in her mouth and spat forcefully into the cop’s face, mouth and eye area.

“How’s that?” she taunted him.

The court heard she then spat on him twice more, telling the constable, “I’ll spit on you again c--t, I don’t give a f--k about you.”

The defendant was eventually sedated and transported to Toowoomba Hospital.

Toowoomba Hospital, where Hogan Dummett was taken after being sedated. Picture: Dan Peled / NewsWire

The victim constable had to undertake three months of blood testing to ensure no disease had been communicated.

Defence counsel Bernard Reilly told the court his client suffered a severe mental health episode in the context of intoxication, substance withdrawal, and undiagnosed PTSD and ADHD.

Mr Reilly said his client became drug dependent in the context of an abusive and controlling relationship with a man 16 years her senior, which concluded around the time of her offending.

Hogan Dummett had done considerable work at rehabilitating herself in the wake of the offending, the court was told, including via throwing herself into martial arts training.

She was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for an operational period of 18 months.

Originally published as Lucy Hogan Dummett: Labrador woman guilty of spitting on cop three times near Toowoomba