A MAN who was arrested while “if not entirely naked, certainly only wearing his underwear” later used his own blood to write obscenities on a police cell wall, a court heard.

Nicholas Lowe, of Endless Street in Salisbury, defaced a cell in Melksham custody suite on February 24, prosecutor Kate Prince told Salisbury magistrates’ court on Friday.

Ms Prince said Lowe’s blood was “spattered around the cell” and “he had also written the word c**t using his own blood on the walls”.

Lowe admitted the crime and later offered to clean up the mess, but a deep clean was required, Ms Prince said.

The 54-year-old admitted a second charge of criminal damage after he smashed the window of Castle Cameras, on Endless Street, with a chair on January 20.

When police arrived at the scene Lowe told them he had done it “for the hell of it” because he “wanted to go inside for the night”. In interview he told officers he “wanted to get arrested to keep himself safe”, Ms Prince said.

Defending, Trevor Line said Lowe’s life “seems to have collapsed from about 2011, when his marriage broke up and he became homeless and alcohol dependent”.

He said Lowe “fully accepts responsibility” for the damage he caused on each occasion, and said the incident in police custody “arose out of him being arrested in Salisbury at about midnight, I think in some dishevelled state, if not entirely naked certainly only wearing his underwear”.

Mr Line added: “He wasn’t aware of what was going on, or why he had been arrested and was not happy to be in a police cell.”

And he said smashing the window at Castle Cameras was “a cry for help”.

“He lives next door to the window that was broken, he was feeling very low and decided that he wanted to be arrested in order that he would be looked after and protected,” Mr Line said.

“He therefore broke the window, waited around for the police to arrive and went off to the station and made full admissions.”

He added that Lowe “clearly has had mental health issues for a number of years, and alcohol is his way of coping”.

Magistrate Simon Crichton said: “Both of these offences are, well, firstly unpleasant, and the second caused a great deal of disruption to the owners of the premises. In both cases the reason for the offences seems to be your mental health issues, they don’t seem to me to be malicious.”

Lowe must pay £30 to Castle Cameras and £150 to Wiltshire Police.