Subscribe to trusted local news
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
15
Jul 2021
Police officer bitten after disturbance at Harrogate rail station
A man bit a police officer during a disturbance at Harrogate railway station that was so severe an armed response unit had to be sent out.
Thomas Spedding, 33, sunk his teeth into the officer’s arm after the victim, who was off duty, spotted what appeared to be a “family dispute”, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Charles Blatchford said the victim tried to break up the disturbance and told Spedding he was a police officer.
During the ensuing struggle on the station platform, the off-duty constable was bitten on the forearm which broke the skin, leaving an 8cm mark and bruising.
The train guard tried to intervene, but it needed armed-response officers to subdue Spedding, who had serious mental-health problems and a record for attacking police vehicles.
Read more:
- Harrogate man jailed 15 years for child sex offences
- Ripon man jailed for downloading over 1,000 indecent child images
The victim, who was named in court but we have chosen not to reveal his identity, was taken to Harrogate District Hospital for blood tests and precautionary vaccinations and had to be monitored for 24 weeks to ensure there was no infection.
Spedding, of no fixed abode, was arrested and charged with assaulting an emergency worker following the incident on March 1, 2019.
26 offences to police vehicles
He was bailed pending further enquiries but four months later he was arrested again for 26 offences of damaging police vehicles, which resulted in a 10-month jail sentence in August 2019.
Such was his mental state that after Spedding completed that sentence he remained in custody for the following two years while he received help for his mental health and psychiatrists assessed his fitness to face court proceedings on the assault charge.
A trial of the facts had to be held in Spedding’s absence, which found that he did the act alleged and on Thursday he pleaded guilty to the offence after psychiatrists judged him fit to face the court following a vast improvement in his mental health during his time in prison.
Read more:
- Harrogate jeweller not warned about ‘terrifying’ police VIP exercise
- Harrogate ‘Walter Mitty’ character jailed for stealing thousands from 94-year-old father
Mr Blatchford said the off-duty officer had just been on a course and was returning to Harrogate on the train when the disturbance occurred at the station.
The court heard that Spedding’s two previous convictions for 26 offences all related to just two incidents of damaging property in June and July 2019.
Mental disorder
Timothy Jacobs, for Spedding, said his client had effectively been on custodial remand for two years and that his mental-health issues had “caused considerable concern in the past”.
He added:
Judge Simon Hickey said the off-duty officer would have felt “extreme concern” about the risk of infection following the bite to his arm.
He told Spedding:
Imposing a two-year community order, the judge said Spedding had made “great strides” in his rehabilitation while in prison.
The order includes a nine-month drug-rehabilitation programme and intervention by a community mental-health team.
0