Man jailed for frenziedLT attack on police officer

‘She could feel his finger behind her eyeball and believed her eye was going to come out’

A police constable thought she was going to die in a ‘unprovoked, sustained and frenzied attack’ on her by a man who tried to gouge her eye out.

Adam Wright also tried to choke Siobhan Sharkey and pulled out clumps of her hair as he rained ‘haymaker’ punches on her head and body in Fort William on August 22 last year.

Despite another officer trying to stop the assault as ‘back-up’ was 10 minutes away, it was only thanks to the intervention of on-lookers in the garage forecourt that Wright was pulled off her.

Wright, now aged 24, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court on Wednesday April 8 for sentencing by Sheriff Sara Matheson.

She told him no other disposal other than custody was appropriate saying: ‘This was an unprovoked, sustained and frenzied attack on a female officer. All members of the emergency services are entitled to the protection of the courts.

‘The reasons for the sentence are that you have shown a lack of remorse and your immediate reaction in the aftermath was that this officer deserved it. Also, you present a risk to the public and you have no respect for authority.’

The sheriff jailed him for 32 months, backdated to August 23, and on his release, he will be supervised for a further year.

His lawyer, Graham Mann, accepted a jail sentence was inevitable but said his client had been diagnosed with autism and a psychosis.

He added: ‘There was a trigger in this for him when he was stopped by the police. He had an obsession about finding somewhere he could live where he was away from people.

‘When he was stopped by police in a car he should not have been driving his perception was that the police were removing him from his sense of peace of mind and calm.

‘The psychologist’s report, I would hope, puts his actions in context.

‘I accept it was a traumatising incident for the police officer and he shows a lack of empathy.’

Previously, fiscal depute Karen Aitken said Wright, who comes from England and admitted assault to severe injury, complained he wasn’t strong enough to fight them off so he could continue his onslaught on the helpless Constable Sharkey. Mrs Aitken told the court that PC Sharkey had seen Wright in a car which had been seized by the police a few days earlier and went to speak to him. He angrily got out of the car and the officer called for assistance but was told it was 10 minutes away.

She warned Wright about his conduct but he carried on when another police constable arrived. When PC Sharkey decided to arrest Wright, he punched her on the face and grabbed her in a choke hold so she couldn’t breathe.

Mrs Aitken said: ‘He seized her hair, pulled her down while repeatedly punching her on the face, described by witnesses as ‘haymakers’.

He then thrust his left hand into her left eye socket and attempted to gouge out her eyeball, causing her to scream in agony. ‘She said she could feel his finger behind her eyeball and believed her eye was going to come out. She later indicted she thought she was going to die. Both constables tried to block the blows but due to the ferocity of the attack, they were unable to stop him,’ said Mrs Aitken. ‘He ripped out clumps of her hair and struck her repeatedly in the face with his knee. Members of the public came to the officers’ assistance and overpowered Wright, who later told police PC Sharkey “deserved it”.’

The officer was badly injured, suffering multiple bruises, scratches to the corneas of her eyes, significant swelling and only returned to work fulltime last week.

Mrs Aitken said Mrs Sharkey also suffered from anxiety and depression and needs regular eyesight check-ups.