Dane jailed for coughing on police while shouting 'corona'

Denmark's Supreme Court has sentenced a man to four months imprisonment for coughing at two police officers while shouting "corona" during a routine traffic stop in March last year.

The 20-year-old was returning home from a birthday party in the city of Aarhus when he was stopped by police during Denmark's first semi-lockdown.

The incident, led to the defendant being arrested on charges of threatening behaviour, although he later tested negative for Covid-19.

First acquitted in a local court, he was later convicted at Denmark's Western High Court. 

At his Supreme Court appeal against that conviction, prosecutors sought a jail term of three to five months.

Other similar incidents were reported in Denmark last year, partly reflecting declining public trust in the government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis, while similar cases were reported in the UK, the US and Canada.

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English and Welsh police forces registered 200 incidents a week of spitting or coughing at officers, usually preceded by the offenders saying they were infected, an investigation last April by British daily The Telegraph found.

The Danish defendant, a man in his early twenties, was also convicted of fleeing the police following his preliminary questioning at the city court. 

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