Man who fell 25ft off balcony jailed
A MAN who fell 25ft from a balcony while trying to escape from police has been jailed.
Thomas Richard Hudson appeared in custody after being arrested for breaching an antisocial behaviour order, just days after a court appearance on the same charge.
Prosecutor Paul Anderson told the court Hudson, 29, of no fixed address, was excluded from the Sulgrave area of Washington by the order, but had been arrested the first time after visiting a flat in the village.
He had suffered “quite significant injuries” when he fell from a balcony.
“On that occasion, he accepted he knew he was subject to the order, knew he should not be in Sulgrave and knew it was an offence of breaching the order by doing so,” said Mr Anderson.
Paul McAlindon, mitigating, said Hudson had been released from custody a week earlier and had gone to Sulgrave because he had nowhere else to go.
“He was released from custody after serving his sentence with no benefits, nowhere to live, no methadone prescription,” said Mr McAlindon. “He is banned from entering parts of Concord and Sulgrave, which is where he has lived all his life, where his brother lives and his sister lives, the only family he has.”
Hudson had bumped into his brother, who sent him to a flat in Sulgrave.
Mr McAlindon added: “Unfortunately, his former partner was there and she rang the police. There was no incident, no harassment caused to anybody, but the police arrived while he was still there and he decided to avoid them by hanging from the balcony. “Unfortunately, he fell 25ft.” Hudson had been made subject to a suspended sentence for that breach, but released with the same problems as before.
Mr McAlindon said jailing Hudson would not change things saying he was caught in a “vicious circle that is not going to end anytime soon”.
However, with no bail address available, he accepted the magistrates’ hands were tied. Magistrates activated the suspended sentence and jailed Hudson for 26 weeks, with 18 weeks for the second breach to run concurrently.