A mentally ill woman who was banned from a library returned and attacked a member of staff with a hammer, a court heard.

Olga Newson pulled the weapon out of her bag and lashed out at Janice Bestal, 53, at Sittingbourne Library after ripping up a letter notifying her of the ban.

The 46-year-old struck the victim to the head causing blood to pour from the wound.

When colleagues went to help her, Newson sunk her teeth into Caroline Frater's wrist.

Bookcases were knocked over as more staff and an elderly visitor managed to grab the hammer from her and restrain her on the floor until police arrived.

The attacks at the building in Central Avenue on June 22 this year were caught on CCTV cameras and shown to a jury.

Two days earlier, Newson threatened and struck two other staff members when they stopped her from continuing to use a computer.

Prosecutor Archie Mackay told Maidstone Crown Court Newson made “explicit and violent threats” before striking one librarian and punching the arm and shoulder of another.

"Some of those threats were about what she was going to do in the future, and on June 22 she returned," said Mr Mackay.

"A decision had been made to ban her from the library and Janice Bestal handed her the banning letter.

"She ripped it up, took out from her a bag a hammer and started to strike Ms Bestal on her head with it. There was quite a big bit of violence occurring in that library."

Ms Frater was bitten as she tried to take the hammer from Newson.

She then yanked Newson’s head back by her ponytail and she was restrained until officers arrived.

Newson, of Oak Road, Murston, Sittingbourne, was accused of wounding Ms Bestal with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assault causing actual bodily harm to Ms Frater and two offences of assault by beating Brenda Bingham and another librarian.

Mr Mackay said Newson suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was not well enough to enter pleas to the charges or attend her trial. She was being treated in a psychiatric unit.

Jurors, therefore, had only to decide whether Newson “did the act”. They did so and sentence was adjourned until January 8 when a psychiatrist will give evidence about her condition.

Judge Philip Statman is expected to make a hospital without limit of time under the Mental Health Act.

Ms Bestal told how she tried to back off as Newson lunged at her with the hammer.

"She started hitting me in the head,” she said. “She hit me twice, maybe more. I was backing away from her and I started to grapple with her and try to hold her hand. It all started to go a bit of a blur.”

Brenda Bingham, 60, a deputy registrar at the KCC run library, said she had told Newson to leave two days earlier because of inappropriate language to a colleague.

She reacted “angrily and abusively”, she said, and seemed to be out of control.

Newson threatened: “You will not exist, I will finish you, I will finish this whole place. The library will be finished.”

She hit a colleague in the face and was ordered to leave.

"At that point she became quite menacing and threatening,” said Ms Bingham. "It was obvious she wasn't just going to go and she started coming towards me."

She backed away but was wedged against a shelving unit, where she was punched.