ONE of Dorset's most prolific criminals has been jailed again after threatening to stab a doctor at Poole Hospital with a needle.

Darren Amor, 42, also threatened to strangle Dr Natasha Chatham after she found him asleep in the hospital's accident and emergency department on September 21 this year.

On Monday Bournemouth Crown Court heard how Dr Chatham was working as a registrar at the hospital on the when she was called to assist with Amor around 4.15am.

Victoria Hill, prosecuting, said: "Dr Chatham found him asleep in one of the bays and tried to wake him up but he was unresponsive.

"She tried to take a blood sugar test at which point Amor woke up and told her that if she touched him again he would hit her.

"Dr Chatham told him that if he was feeling okay he had to leave the hospital.

"At this point he became very aggressive and abusive."

The court heard that during the confrontation Amor took a needle out of his pocket and threatened to stab her with it he also told Dr Chatham that he would strangle her if she "continued to smirk at him".

In a statement read out in court Dr Chatham said she was an "experienced doctor who had dealt with abusive patients many times during her eight years in the profession but that was the first occasion she ever felt she would be hurt".

Amor, of Coombes Road, Blandford, pleaded guilty to the public order offence last month but on Monday Judge Peter Johnson sentenced him to 18 weeks in jail.

The court heard the offence also put him in breach of a suspended sentence he was givcn in March for battery when he spat at police officers telling them they would get hepatitis c as a result.

Officers found him slumped in the front seat of a car.

Police found heroin residue at the scene but Amor refused to provide a blood sample and became abusive towards the doctor.

It was also discovered that he was not insured for the vehicle he was driving.

In total he was sentenced to 36 weeks in jail.

In November last year Amor was banned from Ferndown town centre for five years after residents reported a catalogue of more than 40 incidents involving Amor.

He was accused of being drunk and disorderly, lying in the road obstructing traffic, urinating in public, theft, assault, threatening and abusive behaviour and violence towards police officers.

And during a case in 2008, the court was told he had already had 53 convictions for 242 offences.