Man lashed out at emergency workers trying to help him
A HOPELESSLY drunk man assaulted emergency workers after learning of his girlfriend’s infidelity, a court has heard.
Police and paramedics went to the aid of Andrew George-thomas after he was found lying in the street “grunting and snoring”.
He lashed out at the officers and abused them as they tried to help.
Swansea Crown Court heard George-thomas had consumed a “vast quantity” of whisky on the day in question, and has no recollection of the incident.
Sophie Hill, prosecuting, said on the evening of February 20 this year members of the public reported an unresponsive man lying on the pavement on Swansea’s St Helen’s Road. The man was described as “grunting and snoring”.
Police and paramedics soon arrived, and it was clear that George-thomas was extremely intoxicated.
The court heard that as the officers tried to help the 36-year-old he became aggressive and abusive, shouting and swearing at police and paramedics and lashing out with arms and feet. During the course of the struggle he struck one PC – a student officer – in the arm, and kicked a paramedic in the shins.
The defendant was eventually restrained and put in the back of a police van but continued to be verbally abusive, calling the officers “w ***** s”.
A bag seized from the drunk man was searched, and a quantity of cannabis recovered.
Miss Hill said George-thomas was interviewed the following day but could not recall the incident due to his level of intoxication at the time – a level of drunkenness he assessed as 10 out of 10.
George-thomas, of Geiriol Road, Townhill, Swansea, had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting an emergency worker by beating and to possession of cannabis when he appeared in the dock via video-link from prison for sentencing.
The court heard he has 27 previous convictions for 92 offences. At the time of the St Helen’s Road incident he was subject to a suspended sentence imposed some three months earlier for possession of a knife.
Dan Griffiths, for George-thomas, said the defendant acknowledged his behaviour towards the emergency workers had been disgraceful.
He said his client had consumed a “vast quantity” of whisky on the day in question having “recently learned his longterm partner had been unfaithful to him”, and remembers nothing of what subsequently happened.
Recorder Simon Mills told George-thomas he had been “as drunk as you could be” on the evening in question, and had lashed out at public servants who were only trying to help him – a group of people he said the courts had a duty to protect.
Giving the defendant a one-third discount for his guilty pleas, the recorder sentenced him to four months in prison for each of the two assaults, the sentences running concurrently making a total of four months.
No separate penalty was imposed for possession of cannabis.
The recorder activated 10 months of the previously imposed 15-month suspended sentence the defendant was in breach of, and this will run consecutively with the new sentence making an overall sentence of 14 months in prison.
George-thomas will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence under the UK Government’s early release scheme to serve the remainder in the community.