A man who spat in Jeremy Corbyn’s face while the former Labour leader was out cycling with his wife at the height of the first coronavirus lockdown has been sentenced to 80 hours of community service. Gerald Dore admitted assault by beating for spitting at Corbyn, and a public order offence for threatening Corbyn’s wife, Laura Alvarez. But he said the attack was not politically motivated. “I don’t know him,” Dore, 56, told Westminster magistrates court. “I didn’t dislike him, he was just in my way and I was trying to get home.” Corbyn was out cycling with Alvarez on the morning of 20 May last year when he was assaulted, the court heard. Matt Barrowcliffe, prosecuting, said the couple had stopped at the corner of Seven Sisters Road, north London, where Dore was waiting. The Islington North MP gestured at Dore to cross, but received a stream of obscenities in response. When Corbyn told him “there was no need for that sort of language”, Dore repeated the abuse. “He began shouting and swearing aggressively towards both parties before ultimately taking a step towards Mr Corbyn and spitting,” Barrowcliffe said. Dore also verbally abused Alvarez, and threatened her physically. In a statement read by Barrowcliffe, Corbyn said: “I was alarmed and distressed by the aggressive behaviour towards me, in particular spitting in my face.” Barrowcliffe said the assault was aggravated by Corbyn’s vulnerability as a person in the public eye. Dore, a former plumber, represented himself in court. He said he had chronic pain and mental health issues, and the court was told he had a lower culpability. “All I was trying to do was cross the road and he was in the way,” said Dore, who has previous convictions for assault. “I might have sprayed him,” he later added. The district judge Adrian Turner accepted that the assault was a chance encounter. He said: “To spit at someone is gross in any circumstance, but to do so at a time when the infections were running very high was very serious indeed.” Turner gave Dore an 18-month community order, which will include 80 hours of unpaid work, and ordered him to pay £250 in compensation – £150 to Corbyn and £100 to Alvarez. “This is going to hurt,” the judge said. Rob Hutchinson, a CPS prosecutor, said: “This successful prosecution should put no one in any doubt that we will take firm action against those who abuse others in this way and – in this case – our elected officials and their families, who should be able to go about their personal business without being put in fear.”