Man ordered to pay for police van to be cleaned

SMEARED BLOOD AROUND THE VEHICLE AFTER BEING ARRESTED

A MAN who became agitated after his mother refused to let him into her home ended up being arrested, punching a police van and smearing his blood around the vehicle.

Joseph Bater, who already had 125 crimes on his record, took a taxi to his mother’s house in Trafford Road, Rowlatts Hill, Leicester, on April 12.

She refused to let him in and when he complained loudly she called police and they put him in a police car.

But he lay across the back seat and started kicking at the window so the officers called a van to pick him up.

He was put in the cage at the rear of the vehicle.

Prosecutor Richard Holt told Leicester Magistrates’ Court: “When he was transferred to the van he started to punch and headbutt the cage, causing his hand to bleed.

“He smeared the blood from his hand around the van.”

Mr Holt said Bater’s recent convictions included a two-year community order he had been given three weeks earlier.

That was for a offences including shoplifting, causing criminal damage and assaulting an emergency worker.

Shanaz Patel, representing Bater, told the magistrates the dispute with his mother and his various problems went back to when Bater, now 36, was a boy.

When Bater’s mother and step-father split up, Bater’s brother stayed with their mother but Bater was sent to live with his step-father.

Ms Patel said the step-father was “the less responsible parent” and had alcohol problems.

“Mr Bater has struggled with alcohol his whole adult life,” she said.

She said last year Bater, of Fosse Close, Braunstone Town, had been severely injured after men burst into his previous home and attacked him, stamping on his legs.

Bater had PTSD as a result, as well as ADHD and severe anxiety.

She said: “It’s been a horrendous few months for him.”

The magistrates made a compensation order, with Bater being ordered to pay £100 to police for the cost of cleaning the van.