Drug-fuelled knifeman slashed officer’s face during ‘rampage’
A DRUG-fuelled robber slashed a Derby police officer across the face during “a rampage” of offending in the city, a court heard.
PC Steve Reid required 15 stitches across two large facial wounds inflicted on him by Richard Jefford.
At the time, the officer was with a newly-trained female colleague and they were responding to reports of a robbery in the Slack Lane area of the city.
Jefford, 38 and of no fixed address, is on trial for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to PC Reid.
He has admitted to using the knife and causing the injuries but has pleaded not guilty to the charge saying he did not intend to inflict them as he was high on either heroin, crack cocaine or both at the time.
Opening the case to the jury at Derby Crown Court, prosecutor Laura Pitman said: “In short, that night, this defendant had been on what you might call a bit of a rampage.
“He said he did not intend to cause really serious injury to PC Reid due to his consumption of drugs.
“The prosecution say that would make a nonsense of the criminal justice system. It would be like you or I drinking wine or gin and then attacking someone and saying ‘I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t drunk that’.
“That is not a defence, it’s an excuse, he chose to take those drugs, no one forced him.”
Miss Pitman said PC Reid and his recently-qualified colleague were heading back to St Mary’s Wharf police station towards the end of “an extremely busy shift” at around 10pm on October 15 last year.
She said they were asked to attend reports of a robbery in the Slack Lane area of Derby and when they arrived encountered an “agitated” Jefford.
Miss Pitman said they tried to calm him as he walked down the street trying front door handles and banging on windows.
She said they used incapacitate spray on his face, but it had little or no effect.
Miss Pitman said: “The defendant was behind a wheelie bin and PC Reid went towards him. He said it was then he saw him bring his right arm down quickly.
“He said he did not know exactly what happened at first, just that he felt a really cold feeling on his head. He then started to feel blood dripping down his head.”
Miss Pitman said the officer pressed the panic alarm on his radio and other patrols quickly flooded the area, Tasering Jefford to bring him down and arrest him.
She said colleagues took the PC to the Royal Derby Hospital to be treated for two large wounds to his head and face. Miss Pitman said: “One of the injuries was an open eight-inch long wound down the left side of his face.
“The second was seven-to-eight inches long and began at the top of his forehead towards the eye socket and down his nostril.
“Fortunately for PC Reid the blade did not make contact with the eye.”
She said Jefford was initially treated in hospital and then taken to a police station where three wraps of crack cocaine and one wrap of heroin, as well as burnt foil, were found on him.
He answered “no comment” to the questions he was asked in interviews.
The jury has been told how the defendant has already pleaded guilty to robbery, criminal damage and possession of drugs.
Miss Pitman said: “Richard Jefford accepts that on the night we are dealing with he had the knife and that he used it to cut the face of PC Reid when he lashed out.
“What he denies is intent.”
The trial continues.
That is not a defence, it’s an excuse, he chose to take those drugs, no one forced him. Laura Pitman