Man who bit cop in bid to flee jailed

A NORTH-WEST man who rammed two police cars while trying to avoid arrest last June and bit a police officer while trying to escape from custody during a court appearance will remain behind bars for at least another 11½ months.

Adrian James Roy Oates, 24, pleaded guilty to charges of obstructing a police officer, unlawfully injuring property, assaulting a police officer and using a controlled drug, and to charges related to his attempted escape last August.

“These are serious crimes and a long sentence of jail is necessary,” Justice Helen Wood, who sentenced Oates in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday, said.

“I take into account ... that you are sorry for what you have done and you want the chance to prove that you can stop taking drugs and stop offending.”

Justice Wood said police were searching for Oates in June in relation to family violence, driving and assault matters. They found him in his car, with his partner and her four children, in a Devonport supermarket car park and told him he was under arrest.

Justice Wood said Oates tried to get away, crashing into two other cars in the car park and ramming two police cars.

She said two officers used batons to smash a window of Oates’s car and tried to restrain him.

“He ignored repeated requests to stop resisting and to place his hands behind his back,” Justice Wood said.

Capsicum spray was used to subdue Oates and Justice Wood said he spat blood and saliva at the police officers.

Facing the charges in the Burnie Magistrates Court last August, Oates, who was not handcuffed, became agitated when his lawyer was entering pleas, Justice Wood said.

She said he jumped up from his seat in the dock and pushed through a small wooden door.

Justice Wood said he pushed a police officer away and was stopped by two police prosecutors. She said he “struggled violently”, tried to gouge an officer’s eyes out and bit the officer’s left hand.

“His motivation [to escape] was that he wanted to see his mother who was in hospital,” Justice Wood said.

She said Oates’s mother, who died in October, had suffered a second stroke at the time.

Justice Wood said Oates had an extensive history of criminal conduct.

The court heard Oates was exposed to toxic levels of lead in the first six years of his life.

She said his intellectual functioning was low and he started using cannabis and ice when he was a young teenager.

Justice Wood also said Oates had apologised to the officer he bit.

She sentenced Oates to 2½ years in prison, with four months suspended on strict conditions. He will be able to apply for parole after serving at least 13 months of his sentence, backdated to January 29.