A Welsh man dressed in a dark, Grim Reaper-style outfit was arrested after climbing onto the roof of a hospital building while carrying what witnesses said appeared to be a scythe, alarming doctors, patients and others below.
Leon Gillespie, 26, was fined $269 (£200) last month for scaling Ysbyty Glan Clwyd hospital in Wales during the unsettling June 6 incident, the North Wales Pioneer reported Monday.
Gillespie, who wore a black hooded costume he later insisted was meant to look like a crow, remained on the roof for about 50 minutes while holding a long blade and making noises toward people on the ground.
The Deganwy resident was eventually persuaded to come down and was charged with causing a nuisance or disturbance without reasonable excuse on National Health Service grounds.
He appeared in court on July 15, where he admitted the nuisance charge.
At the hearing, Gillespie denied that his costume was intended to depict the Grim Reaper, the hooded figure traditionally associated with death and often shown carrying a curved blade. Instead, he told the court he had been dressed as a bird.
The court also heard that Gillespie had climbed onto the hospital building after committing two shoplifting offenses.
Prosecutors said he stole cat food and litter worth about $50 from a pet store in Llandudno, North Wales, on March 26, and later took goods from a Sainsbury’s supermarket in the same town on May 28.
He had to pay around $336 (£250) for those two offenses.
The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board – Wales’ largest health board, which manages the Ysbyty Glan Clwyd hospital – said it has a “zero tolerance approach to abuse, aggression or nuisance within its hospital sites.”
North Wales cops said Gillespie was “charged with other than for the purpose of obtaining medical advice, treatment or care, caused, without reasonable excuse, a nuisance or disturbance to a National Health Service staff member who was working there or was otherwise there in connection with work, and refused, without reasonable excuse, to leave the premises when asked to do so by a constable.”
