A HOAXER lied to staff at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary about having coronavirus symptoms - and unleashed a train of events that left genuinely ill people waiting to be seen.

Keswick man Daniel Louis Friend-Finnerty, 32, admitted causing a public nuisance.

George Shelly, prosecuting at the city's Rickergate Magistrates' Court, said Friend-Finnerty, of Eskin Street, Keswick, was in a fast food outlet in Penrith on Valentine's Day last year when he phoned the ambulance service saying that he had flu-like symptoms.

The ambulance took him to The Cumberland Infirmary, where he told staff he believed he had developed Covid symptoms after a holiday in Thailand a few days earlier.

Hospital staff and police officers investigated this jointly and found it was untrue, magistrates heard. Had it been true, it would have made him the first Covid-19 case in Cumbria.

The defendant later admitted that he had been drunk and that his claim to have the virus had been a 'joke'.

But Mr Shelly said that the incident caused hours in lost staff time, with some having to be transferred specifically to look after Friend-Finnerty. Special infection-control precautions were put in place.

The ambulance that was involved had to be kept out of service for four hours and decontaminated as a precaution, while a consultant was taken away from A&E to deal with this one case.

The ambulance crew also had to finish work over four hours late, with some nursing staff over three hours late in finishing.

The court was told other patients were put at risk because of the hoax, as it took longer for genuine patients to be seen.

When interviewed by police Friend-Finnerty claimed he had not grasped the consequences of his actions.

Duncan Campbell, defending, said these were strange circumstances and his client had behaved in a "ridiculously stupid" way.

Friend-Finnerty had been depressed at the time and a long-term relationship had ended.

He had mental health problems and had lost his job, and was homeless for a time, but he was now working as a chef in the Lake District.

The defendant accepted his actions put people in fear and regretted this, said Mr Campbell.

The lawyer added: "In a month of Sundays, you would not expect this man to cause these problems.”

Magistrates imposed a 16-week curfew which will be electronically monitored.

Friend-Finnerty must also pay compensation of £100 each to two nurses, a consultant, two ambulance personnel, a microbiologist, one security staff and two police officers, with the bench telling him that making this bogus claim had not bee "one of his better days, with a lot of people put in fear."