A MEDICAL centre was shut down the day after last June's shootings in Cumbria when a troubled patient claimed to be armed with a gun, a court heard.

Daniel Laws, 44, a hard-up alcoholic with mental health problems, was believed to have made a death threat about a doctor in Waterfoot earlier in the day and talked of killing his GP.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Laws, who had had a two-day drinking session, had just fallen out with his bank and had been watching TV coverage of the horrific shootings in Cumbria, which claimed 12 lives.

He then rang Whitworth Medical Centre and told the frightened receptionist, his sister-in-law Roma Laws, "it's going to be Hungerford all over again”.

The surgery was evacuated, closed and the shutters pulled down whilst police broke into the defendant's home and detained him. In his pocket he had a ripped up piece of paper on which he had written "Kill."

Laws, of Market Street, Whitworth, had earlier admitted making a threat to kill, last June 3. He was jailed for 12 weeks.

Judge Graham Knowles, QC, said the defendant's conduct was not a piece of foolishness and he had been taking out his frustrations and difficulties by attacking an NHS premises.

Laws had intended the receptionist to fear he would carry out his threat and a deterrent sentence had to be passed..

The judge said he accepted Laws did not have the means to carry out his threat, but continued: "It remains that this was a wholly gratuitous and grave offence, committed against a doctors'

surgery."

Sarah Statham, prosecuting, said Laws had telephoned his bank in the morning and was irate with a call centre worker.

He said he might shoot people if things were not sorted out and made a threat about his own doctor. Police in the Whitworth area were alerted to his state of mind and contacted Whitworth Medical Centre, which he then rang and made threats.

Laws had 19 previous convictions.

Daniel Thomas, for Laws, said: "In many ways, this case is as sad as it is shocking and serious. The defendant is somebody who needs help."