Yob spat at and racially abused police officer

JON MACPHERSON

ADRUNK yob who spat at and racially abused a police officer has been warned he faces jail.

Lee Thomas Jourey, from Bacup, also telephoned the police threatening to go to a pub with a knife after being ejected and was later abusive to a hospital clerical officer when he was being admitted for treatment.

The incidents happened in the early hours of June 3 and just three months after Jourey was given a suspended prison sentence for sending a malicious communication, a court heard.

Prosecutor Tracey Yates told Burnley Magistrates Court how Jourey was at ●● Lee Thomas Jourey the Cornerstone pub in Bacup when he was ‘involved in an incident’ at 2am and ejected.

Jourey, 28, contacted the police saying he had been assaulted and was ‘abusive to the call taker’, the court was told.

Officers found him in the town centre and took him home but he then telephoned police again say- ing he was ‘going to kill someone’ and would go back to the Cornerstone pub with a knife. Jourey then made a third call saying he was going to kill himself and was arrested.

Miss Yates said he was taken to hospital where he spat at a police officer, making contact with his face, before being racially abusive to him. When he was being booked into the hospital he was abusive to the clerical officer.

Jourey, of Clough Street, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated assault, racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress, making threatening phone calls and causing harassment, alarm or distress.

He will be sentenced at Burnley Crown Court on November 19.

Defence solicitor Ben Leech said Jourey will ‘have to try and persuade a judge’ not to activate his suspended sentence but ‘knows he will have a significant struggle’.

He said: “There’s mitigation to be put forward as to how he was feeling at the time and the circumstances which led to his depression becoming more fraught.

“There were complications with his girlfriend’s pregnancy [which] preyed heavily on his mind.

“Unfortunately not addressing that matter particularly well, he turned to drink and from there matters curtailed and somewhat spiralled out of control.

“While he doesn’t see himself as a racist he can’t challenge what the officer says because he has very little recollection of it.” ●● The High Sheriff of Lancashire Tony Attard and his wife Patricia along with the Mayor and Mayoress of Rossendale Coun Ann Kenyon and her sister Susan Kapler, with veterans at VIC