A VIOLENT thug with a history of attacking emergency workers bit a police officer after complaining his handcuffs were too tight, a court heard.

Dawid Varano lunged towards his victim as he was being led to a cell in Southampton Central Police Station.

He then bit down hard on the man’s leg.

The 27-year-old broke through his trousers and skin leaving him with a blood blister.

The officer needed hospital treatment and was left worried about contracting life-changing diseases from Varano of Langhorn Road, Southampton.

Prosecution barrister, Rose Burns, told the court how police had been called to the defendant’s parental home following reports he had assaulted his mother.

However, when officers arrived, he became aggressive and threatened them.

While in the back of the police van he spat repeatedly even landing saliva on one of the officers.

Appearing before Southampton Crown Court, he was charged with two counts of assaulting an emergency worker and a single count of criminal damage to which he previously pleaded guilty.

He has five previous convictions for 13 offences, “mainly of a similar nature” which include battery and assault occasioning ABH.

Varano has other violent convictions having been jailed for four months last year for attacking two emergency workers, and for a racially aggravated assault.

Defending, Jim Osborn said: “In relation to mitigation, the only mitigation I can put forward is he pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

He added: “He tells me he bit the officer because the handcuffs were too tight, and the officer was refusing to loosen them off.”

Judge Peter Henry jailed him for ten months.