AUDI drunken thug buys a bicycle after getting jailed

QUOTE:
A Hull dad who took his Audi TT on a drunken drive laughed as he forced a police officer into a headlock.

Michael Anson, 32, of Caledon Close in east Hull, had been out drinking heavily in Bridlington before getting behind the wheel on Sunday, January 26.

At Hull Crown Court on Wednesday, Andrew Semple, prosecuting, said a CCTV operator had spotted Anson leaving a nightclub in Prince Street at just after midnight.

Despite "staggering" and being visibly drunk, the operator watched him get into his car, reverse away and drive down a one-way street in the wrong direction. (SURELY NOT - SM)

After narrowly missing a taxi on a bend heading the other way, Anson then turned right onto Marlborough Terrace and continued driving for a further few minutes before stopping near Promenade. Mr Semple said the CCTV operator had called police and two officers had found Anson "slumped" in his car, with "slurred speech" and his "eyes glazed over".

He was taken to the police vehicle and asked to blow into a breathalyzer, but the device turned out to be faulty and another was requested.

At that point, Mr Semple said Anson had said he wanted a solicitor and asked if he was under arrest.

When the officer said they would have to wait for the results of the intoximeter, Anson pushed past him and, after trying to stop him, both Anson and the officer fell to the floor. He was "too strong" for the officer, Mr Semple said, and ended up getting him in a headlock while "laughing" as the other officer tried to make him stop.

PAVA spray was eventually needed to restrain Anson, but even then they could not fully handcuff him and it took the assistance of two passing members of the public and four other officers to get him into the police van.

The officer who had scuffled with Anson was left with a "nasty" injury to his knee, while Anson refused to give a breath sample once he had arrived at the police station. The court heard that Anson had six previous convictions for several relevant offences in the past 10 years, including common assault, assaulting a police constable, failing to provide a specimen of breath and driving while uninsured and disqualified.

Anson had declined to have a barrister defend him, and even when Judge David Tremberg warned him of the impending risk of immediate jail time he still would not renege on that decision.

Defending himself, Anson said: "All I can do is apologise for what I've done.

"It wasn't meant to end like that and for any injury I've caused I can only apologise to the people involved. He said he had since borrowed a caravan from his dad and was living in it in his boss' garden. Both his dad and his employer had submitted letters to the court in support of Anson.

"I have sold my car and have bought a push-bike for when I need to get around," he added.

"The reason I didn't bring a solicitor is it would be money I'm taking away from my child and her lifestyle comes before mine.

"I've done wrong so why should she be punished? Sentencing him, Judge Tremberg said: "You have a number of relevant previous convictions and those convictions show evidence of a pattern of indifference to the driving laws in this country and a willingness to assault police when challenged.

"You told probation services that all those offences were against a background of heavy drinking, but this incident marks an escalation in the gravity of this ongoing pattern of offending.

"That is a substantial aggravating feature in your case. You say the background to this incident was that you had rowed with your partner, left the family home and went to get drunk.

"Unfortunately, domestic disharmony is a fact of life for a lot of people, but it doesn't excuse them from going driving around while incapable and it doesn't excuse you.

"You caused an avoidable and substantial danger to yourself and other road users.

"Had you killed somebody, and there is a great deal of fortune that you didn't, then the sentence would be measured in a very many years. "Police came to challenge you and instead of going quietly you were violent towards them and gratuitously uncooperative, with one officer suffering a nasty gash in the process.

"Courts must do all they can to protect public servants from such behaviour.."

But he said he would give Anson credit for his guilty plea, as well as the "genuine remorse" he had shown.

"You are a hard worker, well thought of by your employer, and it is encouraging to see the likelihood is, given how highly thought of you are, that you have the prospect of working in the future," he said. He sentenced Anson to six months in jail for dangerous driving, to be served concurrently with three months for failing to provide a specimen of breath and two months consecutively for the assault on the police officer, to a total of eight months behind bars.

He will have to serve at least half of that before being released on licence.

He was also disqualified from driving for three years and four months and will have to pass an advanced test before he can get behind the wheel again.

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news...police-3940276