I’ve woken up crying over and over watching colleagues and paramedics trying to bring me back to life
A drunken builder has escaped jail “by the skin of his teeth” despite putting a police officer off work for months.
Ian Scott was given a suspended prison sentence after admitting causing grievous bodily harm to PC Ashley Aspinall outside a Blackpool bar after a night’s heavy drinking.
A judge heard the officer had tried to move the 50-year-old on after he was ejected by doormen. But in an altercation which followed the pair crashed to the ground, knocking PC Aspinall unconscious and causing a serious head injury which left him bedridden in hospital for two weeks.
“I thought I was going to die,” the police constable told Recorder Ciaran Rankin at Preston Crown Court. “I was just thinking about my daughter and seeing her again. That was the only thing that kept my mind off the pain I was in.”
PC Rankin spent four months recuperating from his injuries and was only allowed to return to work on non-operational duties because of the impact the incident had on him both physically and mentally.
“I don’t believe my actions that day warranted this level of injury,” he said in an emotional victim statement in court. “I can’t think of anything I did to trigger it.
“When I was in hospital I couldn’t physically wash myself, I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the toilet.
“I have experienced trauma in my career, but I never expected to suffer an injury like this.”
The court was told that PC Aspinall and other officers had been dealing with another call in Blackpool town centre on the night of Friday April 7 last year when they saw Scott arguing with door staff outside the Stanley Showbar. He had been thrown out and was trying to get back into the bar to retrieve his mobile phone.
While officers agreed to go in to get the phone Scott, of Cavendish Road, St Annes, continued to angrily try and push his way in. PC Aspinall warned him to stop behaving in an unruly manner or he would be arrested.
An altercation ensued in which the officer fell to the ground with Scott on top of him. PC Aspinall banged his head on the ground and was knocked temporarily unconscious. When he came to he told the court he was in a confused state.
“I couldn’t understand what had happened,” he said. “Hearing the paramedics sounding scared and in a panic, I knew it was serious.
“They told me at a later date that if it had happened during the day they would have called Helimed (air ambulance service). My brain was simply not functioning. I kept calling colleagues by wrong names.”
In hospital it was thought PC Aspinall had a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain, but eventually he was diagnosed with severe concussion which affected his vision, affected the right side of his face and caused weakness in his limbs. He also had a large gash on the back of his head.
He told Recorder Rankin that his road to recovery had been a long one and had put a strain on his family life. He felt he returned to work too early and was still having chronic headaches 15 months after the incident. He is still attending trauma therapy sessions.
Other police officers who were with him that night had since undergone counselling. He admitted: “I’ve woken up crying over and over watching colleagues and paramedics trying to bring me back to life.”
He added that one of the patients next to him in hospital was a clergyman and he had begun praying with him on the ward because he feared his injuries were life threatening.
“I was unable to do anything for myself (in hospital),” he recalled. “When I was discharged I felt a burden to my wife. Just going to the toilet was massively exhausting.
“I am a shell of the person I was. The stress of getting back to work was unbearable. I had to reconsider whether I wanted to go back into policing.
“It has been a struggle for me because I enjoy being a (police) officer. I love the job and helping people in society. But I am struggling to find the passion again to get back. I know I’m not the officer I was.”
Scott’s barrister Claire Larton told the court her client had not intended to cause the officer such a serious injury.
“There was a struggle, the officer took hold of the defendant and in the course of resisting he caused the officer to fall,” she said.
She revealed Scott was a man who had had difficulties with alcohol throughout his adult life, but was now trying to get his life back on track. He had been out drinking with his nephew that night and was “in an inebriated state that led to the commission of this offence.”
He had shown “genuine shock and disgust” at his behaviour and expressed genuine remorse. “It was essentially an accident,” she added.
And she told Recorder Rankin: “This is a difficult sentencing exercise because we have heard the victim’s personal statement. We are not seeking to minimise the impact it has had on the officer, but he (Scott) didn’t intend to cause that injury or those consequences.”
Recorder Rankin told Scott that he had caused “significant” injuries and ongoing issues to the officer. “He has told us about the significant adverse effect this assault had on him.
“I need to ask myself does this offence pass the custody threshold? Quite clearly it does.”
But he decided that in the circumstances Scott had escaped an immediate prison sentence “by the skin of his teeth.”
He sentenced him to two years in prison suspended for two years. He also ordered him to attend 15 rehabilitation activity days, undergo alcohol abstinence monitoring and complete 200 hours unpaid work.
And he told him: “If you can afford to get so blind drunk there are financial penalties in this case too.”
He ordered him to pay compensation of £1,500 to PC Aspinall and said: “This is in no way representative of the physical and emotional damage you have caused to the officer.”