A man has been jailed for 19 months for attacking five police officers during the coronavirus pandemic by head-butting, kicking, biting and spitting at them.

Judge Jonathan Rose warned that people who attack emergency workers will go to prison when he locked Jack Lusher up today.

“It is not all right to hit a police officer because it’s ‘part of the job’,” the judge stated.

He cited a report from the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, John Robins, that disclosed that every week in the county there are an average of 37 assaults on police officers and civilian staff.

Lusher, 24, turned to excessive drinking after first being furloughed from his job as a chef because of the pandemic and then being made redundant, Bradford Crown Court heard.

He pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers on March 20 last year, two more on April 1 and another officer on May 22.

Lusher, of Lindley Moor Road, Ainley Top, carried out the first attacks after officers were called to an address where he was in drink and causing damage. There was broken glass and blood on the walls, prosecutor Jessica Randell said.

Lusher made a run for it, pushing a police constable over. He threw “windmill punches” and kicked another officer, and spat at a female officer, calling her highly-insulting names.

He mentioned coronavirus on the way to the police station, Miss Randell said.

Released under investigation, Lusher struck again just days later on April 1.

As with all three occasions he was being arrested for unrelated matters that were not proceeded with.

He kicked an officer in the chest, knocking him backwards, and bit another one, taking a chunk out of his wedding ring finger.

On May 22, the police were again called when Lusher was “irate and intoxicated.”

He shouted abuse and was spitting. He then assaulted an officer by head-butting and kicking him.

He had one caution for criminal damage, the court was told.

Lusher’s barrister, Anastasis Tasou, said the root cause of all the offending was the consumption of an excessive amount of alcohol.

Lusher was a different person when sober. He had now stopped drinking all together.

Judge Rose labelled his offending “drunken thuggery.”

He told him: “What you and others must understand is that every police officer, every emergency worker, is a human being doing a service to the public.”

Lusher was jailed for nine months for the first set of offences, six months for the second two offences, and four months for the final offence. All the sentences will run consecutively.