A CONVICTED murderer slashed a paramedic in the head after it was suggested he’d need to go to hospital.

Alcoholic Gerald Lee, 56, who was given a life sentence in 1983 after he beat a woman to death with a brick, was said to have drunk up to a litre of vodka before the assault.

Prosecutor Alec Small told Swindon Crown Court on Wednesday afternoon that Lee’s social worker had called the ambulance service on February 25, 2021, over concerns about his health.

Although shocked to see the paramedics, Lee let them into his Pinehurst home. They became concerned that he was showing signs of hypothermia and also had high blood pressure, telling him he would need to go to hospital.

The male paramedic remained in the house while his female colleague went to take equipment out to the ambulance.

He was doing paperwork on the laptop used to monitor the crew’s various pieces of equipment when he noticed Lee standing over him, swiping a knife through the air in a figure-of-eight motion.

The knife struck the 999 worker on the head several times and he fled to the ambulance, where he was treated by his colleague.

Mr Small said the man suffered four superficial lacerations to his scalp, ranging from 1cm to an inch in length.

In a victim personal statement, the paramedic said he’d been left with a sense of unease and fear attending other emergency calls.

“When I went to help I was doing my job,” he said. Lee was “clearly” a risk to people, the paramedic added.

When he was taken to hospital, Lee told a constable: “I shouldn’t have done that to the paramedic. I feel terrible.”

Lee, of The Circle, Pinehurst, but appearing in court via video link from HMP Bullingdon, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing actual bodily harm. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983 for the rape and murder a woman in Cardiff and had been recalled on licence, the court heard.

Matthew Harbinson, mitigating, said his client had cut a “tragic figure” since his release on licence in 2014 after 31 years in custody.

Having struggled with alcoholism before he was sentenced in the 1980s, he returned to alcohol addiction after his release on licence.

He had grown increasingly isolated and was “frantic at the prospect of being removed from his home address”, Mr Harbinson said. He was remorseful.

Sending him to prison for a year, Judge Peter Crabtree told Lee: “This was a serious attack by a drunken individual on an emergency worker, which has had a lasting and ongoing effect on him. In those circumstances it will be 12 months and immediate custody.”

The knife was forfeit and will be destroyed. A charge of attempted wounding with intent, which Lee denied, will lie on the file.