Husband's Boozy Bust-Up With Police After Drunken Wife Hospitalised

A drunken recruitment consultant barged a policeman into a hospital wall while investigating the welfare his equally inebriated wife, who was found passed-out in a pub doorway with a cut eye.

Antony John Booth, 55, became aggressive and shouted at the officer: “You think you're a big man around here?” Hammersmith Magistrates Court heard yesterday.

Booth, of Cloonmore Avenue, Orpington also has a pied-a-terre Kensington apartment in exclusive Sheffield Terrace, where the couple were staying that night.

He pleaded guilty to assaulting Police Constable Jones at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington on March 2 and was conditionally discharged for twelve months and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.

Prosecutor Miss Sara Ashkboos told the court: “Police were contacted by paramedics treating the defendant's wife, who had been arrested.

“It's said she assaulted a paramedic and had been found lying in the doorway of a pub in Kensington Church Street by a member of the public with an injury to her eyebrow.

“The defendant has approached the paramedics and tried to speak with his wife and he is described as obstructive,

“He tried to get into the ambulance a number of times as they tried to treat her injuries.

“He became aggressive with the paramedics.”

At St. Mary's the trouble continued. “He was told by the police he would be arrested if he did not leave.

“The police officer grabbed him by the collar and led him away and Mr. Booth began jumping up and down shouting: 'Do you see this police brutality?'

“He barged into the officer and the officer hit a wall and banged his head on the wall.”

Booth's lawyer Mr. Stuart Harris said: “He came home alone to find his wife had been put into a police ambulance and there was a police presence.

“He was told she was being taken to hospital and was under arrest, but was not told which hospital.

He was kept in the dark and was given no information about her injury and became frustrated by the situation.

He's grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged towards the exit and accepts his shoulder went into the officer who was knocked into the wall.

“He accepts he was drunk that evening.”