Death-Wish Wheelchair Yob Bust's Cop's Jaw

A notorious wheelchair-bound thug, who broke a policeman’s jaw with a single punch while threatening to burn down his own Tolworth home, has been forced to continue hospital psychiatric treatment.

One-legged amputee Abraham O’Carroll, 62 - a serial ASBO breacher known as ‘Tipperary’ to long-suffering neighbours – will not be released until an independent tribunal says so.

The Irishman pleaded guilty at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court to maliciously wounding PC Nick Bondonno, inflicting grievous bodily harm, on September 2, last year at the Surrey address in Fullers Avenue.

Prosecutor Miss Anne Davies told the court: “Police were called by an ambulance crew because this defendant was threatening suicide.

“When police arrived at the scene at 9.25am they found him in a wheelchair threatening to burn the house down and he had a lighted piece of paper in his hand, causing his partner to fear for her safety.”

O’Carroll shouted: “I’m serious. I’m going to burn the house down.”

“The defendant raised himself up from the wheelchair and the officer moved in to ask him to sit down when Mr. O’Carroll clenched his fist and punched very hard in an upward motion,” added Miss Davies.

The officer was rushed to Kingston Hospital’s Accident and Emergency department and was transferred to St. George’s Hospital, Tooting for specialist care.

In a statement he explained: “I felt a crack and my lower jaw collided with my upper jaw and the force of the punch caused my head to flip back and there was a ringing sensation in my ear.

“I am very upset Abraham has done this to me when I explained to him I was at his address to help.

“I cannot eat solids, it’s hard to sleep and I have been removed from front-line police duties.”

In the tussle that followed O’Carroll (pictured) fell to the floor, knocking over the dining room table, before being handcuffed and arrested.

One paramedic, who regularly attended the defendant’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.”

Doctors confirmed there was a fracture to the right side of the police officer’s jaw.

“When Mr. O’Carroll was questioned he said he was depressed because he had not had a drink since January and was a recovering alcoholic,” explained Miss Davies.

“He said he wanted to burn the house down and was trying to take his own life.”

O’Carroll has a record of offences stretching back forty years and in more recent times has been jailed for assaulting police, battery, causing actual bodily harm, common assault, has multiple ASBO breaches and a record of drunkenness and threatening behaviour.

He will continue receiving residential care for his agitated depressive state at the Priory Hospital, St. Neots, Cambridgeshire.

“This is a serious offence, an imprisonable offence,” Judge Fergus Mitchell told O’Carroll, making a Section 37 hospital order.

“He suffers from a mental disorder that makes it appropriate for him to be detained.

“This serious charge arose when he was in a wheelchair and with enormous force broke that officer’s jaw who was there to assist him.

“This is a case of serious violence and there is a history here.”

The Judge also made a Section 41 order, forcing O’Carroll to make a successful application for conditional discharge to an independent tribunal, before he can be allowed home.