A DEFENDANT was rushed to hospital after collapsing in Colchester’s new courthouse.

Brian McCue, 50, fell to the floor moments after an eyewitness heard him threatening to commit suicide.

The eyewitness said he took a “mouthful” of pills while in the dock at the new court complex, in St Botolph’s Circus.

Then, while leaving the dock, he collapsed and was taken by ambulance to Colchester General Hospital.

McCue, of Handy Fisher Court, The Commons, Colchester, had been sentenced for two motoring offences after a collision.

Eyewitness Angela Kennedy, 33, of Harwich Road, Colchester, said: “He seemed pretty unstable and had himself propped up in the dock.

“When he was sentenced he just kept repeating he was going to kill himself.

“The magistrates were not paying much attention and he had said he had lost everything in a fire.

“He got pills out and was waving them about. I saw him come out of the dock and make his way across the floor before he collapsed.

“The person mitigating said there were pills all over the floor of the dock and he had taken a mouthful.”

A spokesman for the ambulance service confirmed a man, 50, was taken to Colchester Hospital from the courts.

He was conscious and breathing normally.

Before he collapsed, McCue received 11 points on his licence after admitting failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident. He was driving along The Commons near his home on March 6 when he collided with other cars and left the scene.

On April 5 firefighters were called to Handy Fisher Court after reports of a fire in McCue’s flat. The block was evacuated while the fire was extinguished.

The cause of the fire is not being treated as suspicious.