A NEWTOWN man who kicked a female officer and tried to knee a policeman in the groin was told ‘they were there to help you’.
Robert Hampton, 58 and of Llanllwchaiarn Road, was sentenced to a 12-month community order after he previously pleaded guilty in August to two offences of assaulting an emergency worker.
Magistrates heard that the two officers were sent to carry out a mental health check on the defendant after pub staff at the Dragon Inn Hotel in Montgomery Hotel reported their concerns in February this year.
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Police then took Hampton into a beer garden to talk to him and prosecuting solicitor Helen Tench told the court that they found his behaviour erratic, insisting he was a decorator when he had not been employed for a year.
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Hampton continued to ask officers to leave him alone and they decided to detain him under the Mental Health Act, leading to the defendant resisting him.
He left the female office – PC Jones – with cuts and scrapes after kicking out but denied kicking PC Woosnam in the testicles "because he’d have felt it if I had".
In interview, he admitted kicking out but not getting PC Jones in a headlock.
Robert Hanratty, defending Hampton, said his client was "failed by the attempted arrest".
He asked magistrates for a "therapeutic not punitive" outcome as his client was "back in work and back on his medication".
Chairman of the bench, Nicholas Popwell, said he and his colleagues agreed with the probation recommendation of a community order and 10 rehabilitation activity days.
He said: “We have two officers looking for you, they find you and are concerned about you and the way you deal with it is to lash out.
“They were for you.
“We are going along with the 12-month community order with 10 rehabilitation activity days.
“But there is an uplift because it’s an assault on police officers.”
Hampton will also have to play £100 each per officer in compensation, a victim surcharge of £114 and costs of £85, plus complete 100 hours unpaid work.
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