A man who allegedly walks around Tarxien boasting about the length of his fingernails and scratching people was yesterday charged with putting them to violent use again when he assaulted a nurse and doctor.

On Tuesday, Eugenio Carabott, 61, from Tarxien, hit Nurse Sylvia Spiteri in the face and then scratched her before grabbing medical doctor Malcolm Galea and throwing him against the glass door of a health centre, leaving him needing sutures, a court heard.

Describing the unusual incident, Police Inspector Spiridione Zammit said that at about noon, Mr Carabott turned up at the Tarxien police station to report a fight he had just been in with another man, Ignatius Norman Cachia.

The officer on duty told him to obtain a medical certificate from the Paola health centre and to come back so that he could draw up a report.

In the treatment room, Mr Carabott attacked the nurse and doctor despite having a broken arm, the inspector told the court.

Inspector Zammit had found out that Mr Carabott was behind 30 cases of people being scratched, all in the same area, and that he walked around the village boasting about the length of his nails. Investigations are ongoing.

Standing in the dock with two black eyes, his right arm in a sling and blood stains on his trousers, Mr Carabott, through his legal aid lawyer Noel Bartolo, pleaded not guilty to the charges of injuring Ms Spiteri and Dr Galea. He also denied injuring Mr Cachia and damaging government property.

Dr Bartolo asked for a psychiatrist to examine his client after reading out an excerpt from his police statement. In it, Mr Carabott declared that the doctor and nurse “spoke to him roughly” and having a “heavy heart”, “I retaliated”.

The lawyer did not request bail and asked instead for his client to be sent to Mount Carmel hospital. Magistrate Gabriella Vella acceded to the request.