McDonald’s visit ended in violence
An aggressive diner with a criminal record totalling 272 offences has been jailed after attacking staff at a McDonald’s restaurant. Homeless Dale Cooper’s list of crimes - all 37 pages -resulted in a judge commenting he had never come across such a lengthy record.
Judge Philip Statman added: “His record runs to 37-odd pages. It has to be the longest I have come across as a barrister and a judge.”
The 56-year-old screamed and shouted from the dock at Maidstone Crown Court, after the court heard he often “went off on one after drinking.” He admitted six offences including assaulting two emergency workers, and was jailed for a total of four months.
The alcoholic repeatedly blamed his many court appearances on one of his victims the father of a child he used an expletive to describe, during the McDonald’s Sunday lunchtime visit.
Representing himself after claiming he no longer wanted ‘anything to do with solicitors’, Cooper raged: “If that guy hadn’t upset me with his screaming kids it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.” Cooper disputed he was drunk during the verbal and physical outburst at McDonald’s in Maidstone on September 29. Trouble flared when staff asked him to leave after finding him asleep on the floor. He slapped a manager, tried to hit the dad and lashed out at police. Cooper was on bail at the time for a previous assault on a police officer just 10 days earlier in Sittingbourne. He admitted two offences of assault on an emergency worker, two of common assault, one of assault by beating, and threatening behaviour.