Police charge teenager with threatening paramedics with a meat cleaver

AN 18-year-old man has been charged in relation to an attack on ambulance staff in Newtownabbey.

Paramedics were forced to flee for their lives to their ambulance during a call-out in the Ravelston Way area on Tuesday.

They beat a hasty retreat when an aggressive patient came at them wielding a meat cleaver.

The patient first became verbally aggressive when they tried to convince the man to go to hospital.

The crew alerted the police and the patient was arrested at the scene.

On Wednesday, he was charged with common assault, possession of an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence and two counts of breaching an anti-social behaviour order.

He is expected to appear before Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.