Wheelchair-bound Tolworth amputee broke police officer's jaw, court hears (From Surrey Comet)

Wheelchair-bound Tolworth amputee broke police officer's jaw, court hears

1:50pm Saturday 7th November 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

A wheelchair-bound amputee punched a police officer and broke his jaw, a court heard this week.

Abraham O’Carroll was told at Kingston Crown Court that he faces a spell in prison for the incident, which took place at his home in Fullers Avenue, Tolworth, on September 2.

Police were called to his address after he threatened to set fire to it, saying “I’m serious. I’m going to burn the house down”.

Police constable Nino Bondonno, who was led to him by a paramedic, told O’Carroll “We are here to help”, but O’Carroll clenched his fist and threw an uppercut with such force it flipped the officer’s head back and broke his jaw, Kingston Crown Court heard this week.

In the tussle that followed, O’Carroll, known by his neighbours as Tipperary, fell to the floor, knocking over the dining room table, before being arrested and handcuffed.

PC Bondonno was taken to Kingston Hospital and discovered his jaw was broken, leaving him unable to eat solid food or sleep properly.

In a statement read to the court hearing on Monday, he said: “I am very upset Abraham has done this to me when I explained to him that I was at his address to help.”

The paramedic, who described regular calls to O’Carroll’s home, said in his statement: “He was desperate to know if police were going to attend and seemed as if he would have attacked any officer that had come to speak to him.

The attack was completely unprovoked.”

O’Carroll’s court appearance was delayed to allow his case to be moved to a courtroom where the dock was accessible by lift.

Asked to enter a plea, he said: “Guilty, I suppose.”

Defending him, Shanda McAteer said: “He accepts the punch, although he can’t give a reason for it.”

She said he suffered from depression and had been threatening suicide when police were called.

Judge Martin Binning said: “He seems to have gone terribly off the rails in recent years. All of a sudden there’s a plethora of offences.”

He pointed to a 20-year crime-free period which ended about two years ago.

Since then he has been convicted for offences of harassment, shop-lifting, drunk and disorderly behaviour, criminal damage, burglary and having an offensive weapon – scissors – resulting in spells of two and three months in prison.

The court heard he has been handed antisocial behaviour orders previously, but breached them and had also assaulted a police officer in January.

O’Carroll will be sentenced on November 23, with another spell in prison likely, judge Binning said.

• Get the latest crime figures in our Local Information section