Pair jailed over drunken rampage in supermarket
BOTTLES SMASHED AND STAFF ASSAULTED BY TWO MEN
TWO men are behind bars for behaving like a ‘pair of animals’ during a drunken supermarket frenzy.
John Bridgewater and Liam Hunter lashed out at staff and police officers, throwing items, smashing bottles and even biting people after they were challenged trying to steal alcohol from a Hartlepool supermarket.
Teesside Crown Court heard the pair had gone into Morrisons in the town, already intoxicated at 9am, and tried to leave with 14 bottles of alcohol in bags in a trolley. Violence erupted when staff tried to stop them.
Annelise Haugstad, prosecuting, said Bridgewater grabbed one of the bags from the trolley, it split and some of the bottles smashed to the floor.
She said Hunter hurled a melon at one of the assistants, hitting her in the chest and winding her. She said: “He was tackled by a team of staff and a scuffle ensued.”
She said Bridgewater, 35, of Peterlee’s Chapel Hill Road, grabbed a box of cans of lager which exploded when he threw it to the floor and he threw a second box at a member of staff hitting her in the face and breaking her glasses. He tried to run away, but slipped on the alcohol which was all over the floor.
Ms Haugstad said when a member of staff was holding Bridgewater down he bit him so hard in the arm that it broke the skin and he later needed hospital treatment.
Police arrived and Bridgewater was fighting to get up and trying to punch officers in the head. She said: “Bridgewater was described as being in a druginduced psychosis. He was spitting, struggling and trying to break free.”
The prosecutor said Hunter, 24, of Brandling Court, Shotton Colliery, also bit the shoulder of the police staff investigator who was trying to restrain him. The pair were eventually arrested. Bridgewater needed hospital treatment for a small cut and Hunter claimed he had taken 30 diazepam tablets, but continued to be abusive at the hospital.
Ms Haugstad said Bridgewater had 41 previous convictions for 74 offences and Hunter had 13 previous convictions for 23 offences.
Martin Scarborough, defending Bridgewater, said: “He wants, through me, to apologise for his behaviour and is very embarrassed by it. He doesn’t remember any of it. He fully accepts by his guilty pleas for what he has done. He has pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.”
Daniel Ingham, representing Hunter, said in the year leading up to this incident his client had lost two aunts, one he was very close to. He’d also received some upsetting news a couple of days before the offences.
Mr Ingham added: “He relapsed into behaviour that had got him into so much trouble before, that is drinking alcohol.”
Judge Richard Wright QC, said when challenged they “behaved like a pair of animals”. He said any members of the public witnessing such a display of violence would have been horrified by it. He said: “This was a particularly serious and prolonged episode of disgraceful public disorder and targeted violence.”
He said both men had played their part in the “despicable episode”. He sentenced Bridgewater, who admitted three charges of assaulting an emergency worker, assault causing actual bodily harm, criminal damage, affray, theft and breaching a court order, to a total of two years and three months in prison. Hunter, who admitted theft, two charges of assault and affray was given a total jail term of two years.