Nurse struck police who searched her son
A NURSE assaulted two police inspectors after they searched her son, a court heard yesterday.
Dawn Dickson, 53, lashed out as the pair quizzed the 24-year-old in the street.
The court heard the officers had been acting on a tip-off that suggested Chris Dickson was a drug dealer driving a stolen car.
Dickson, originally from Dumfries, had already made an official complaint about her son being stopped and searched six times within the previous two months.
She told Colchester Magistrates Court she had been advised to film further incidents, so went outside with an iPad when she saw a police car pull up alongside her son’s VW Golf in Chelmsford, Essex, on July 26.
She confronted inspectors Mark Tyler and Tom Stokes and accused them of victimising and harassing her son, a car dealer who had never been arrested or convicted of any drug dealing offence.
Her iPad footage was played to the court and Dickson was heard yelling: ‘I don’t care if you are an inspector. I don’t care if you are the King of England, you are harassing my son again.’
Mr Stokes told the court Dickson approached him from behind and hit him on the side of his face. Mr Tyler said he tried to detain her by grabbing her arm, but she hit him twice around the head.
She ran off, barefoot, but Mr Tyler failed to catch her due to the warm weather and the weight of his uniform and equipment.
Dickson, a mother of three, denied two charges of assault, saying she acted in self-defence’.
She claimed Mr Stokes wrenched her iPad from her with such force it pressed against her knuckle, that Mr Tyler’s boot struck her shin and he nipped her breast, which he denied.
It later emerged that her son’s car had wrongly been declared stolen, the court heard.
District Judge Timothy King found Dickson guilty on both assault charges and fined her £145 for each.
He said: ‘It was inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour. The officers were acting in the execution of their duty.’