Assault on an Emergency Worker – Prosecution Drop Case

Case study summary

Our client had a difficult relationship with his local police force after they failed to properly investigate allegations he made. This came to a head one day and our client was accused of assaulting officers. We fought the case until the Prosecution dropped the charges.

Case study

We were approached by a semi-retried man who had worked all of his life and had no previous convictions. He was shocked and upset after being charged with assaulting an emergency worker.

He had a long standing history with the police. He had reported a number of criminal offences to them which they had not taken seriously. Clearly, the police had started to see him as a nuisance. After being so frustrated with the police’s inaction, his mental health began to decline. This was reported to the police and the police were asked to attend his address to check on his welfare.

When the police attended his address they wholly escalated the situation. The body worn footage from their attendance shows the police officers winding our client up. Our client became so upset by the police he said that he might take his own life. The police then forced entry to our clients address. Our client felt threatened and, in response, spat at the officers. He felt it was the only thing that he could do to get the police away from him. He was then arrested and charged with the offence of assaulting an emergency worker by spitting.

Before we took the case, our client had a difficult experience in court. He felt as though everyone was telling him to plead guilty even though he felt as though he had not anything wrong. He then hired our specialist criminal defence solicitors to fight his corner.

We prepared his case in great detail, obtaining a detailed timeline to show the history of our client’s relationship with the police to put his actions that day into context. We had to deal with criticism from a legal system who were just expecting our client to plead guilty and did not want to listen to him.

We hand-selected an experienced barrister who would be able to sensitively put our client’s actions into proper context for the jury. We also obtained a report into our client’s mental health from a well-regarded psychiatrist. She explained how poor our client’s mental health was at the time and that this was largely attributable to his awful experience with the police not listening to him.

We made it very clear to the prosecution and courts that we would fight the case all of the way. Whilst the case was not without it’s challenges, the awful conduct of the police that day was covered on the video and we certainly had a case to put forward.

After the trial had been pushed back multiple times, for reasons that were not the fault of our client, the prosecution decided not to go ahead with the charges.

Our client was very relieved when his case was dropped earlier than accepted. He was glad that he had a firm on his side who would have fought his case at trial if it came to it.