A female security guard was stabbed in the leg with a hypodermic needle by a drug-taking shoplifter at Sainsbury’s.

Kirsty Gilling faced an anxious wait before doctors gave her the all-clear after vile Maurice Sturgess plunged the syringe into her thigh during a struggle.

Canterbury Crown Court was told Sturgess had threatened people with needles on three previous occasions before the stabbing outside the city supermarket in August last year.

Jailing Sturgess for three years, Judge Adele Williams said: "The sheer anguish and distress caused by being assaulted with a needle and then having to wait many, many months must have been awful.

"On three previous occasions you have threatened to stab victims with a needle. You have a long-standing drug and alcohol problem."

Sturgess - who has 146 offences on his criminal record - was confronted after he was caught trying to steal a bottle of whisky at the store.

He then took out the syringe and threatened staff before stabbing Ms Gilling with it.

The court heard how the guard discovered she had been injured in the scuffle when she saw the needle sticking out of her leg.

Prosecutor Nina Ellin said a second guard, Lara Brand, had also been cut on her hand during the incident.

Sturgess, 36, of no fixed address, admitted four charges of assault, theft and possessing an offensive weapon.

Peter Alcock, defending, said he regretted what he had done and was now remorseful.

But Judge Williams told him: "I have read a statement from Ms Gilling which reveals her very considerable distress and psychological damage and anguish.

"She had to live for many months before discovering she hadn’t been infected with either HIV or hepatitis.

"That is the real mischief here. She was doing no more than her job when you attacked her."