A drunk soldier was PAVA sprayed after swinging a wild punch at a police officer trying to remove him from an airport bus.
Joseph Bowen was approached by two constables in Edinburgh after getting aboard the double decker service without buying a ticket.
The 26-year-old was being escorted off when he aimed a “full force” punch at PC Stewart Thomson which narrowly missed his face, the Daily Record reports.
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PC Thomson used the PAVA device, which is a synthetic pepper spray, after Bowen continued to struggle with officers.
Bowen has been part of Operation Interflex, the British-led military operation to train and support Ukrainian forces following the Russian invasion.
He appeared at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday and pled guilty to assaulting PC Thomson by lunging toward him and throwing a punch.
Bowen, who serves with 3rd Battalion, The Rifles, based at the capital’s Dreghorn Barracks, also pled guilty to struggling with officers and hindering them in the execution of their duty.
Fiscal depute Zoe Inkster said PC Thomson had been on street patrol with a colleague, PC Abbie Cherry, in South St Andrew Street in the New Town.
Ms Inkster said it was around 4.35am when they spotted a “clearly intoxicated” Bowen who was “staggering and talking to himself”.
The court heard they saw Bowen board a Lothian bus, which was busy with commuters being taken to Edinburgh Airport, without paying. Ms Inkster said the constables went to the upper deck to assist the driver in speaking to Bowen.
She said PC Thomson was escorting Bowen from the vehicle when the squaddie “lunged towards him” and had to be fended off.
Bowen then threw a “full force punch to PC Thomson’s face which narrowly missed him”, the prosecutor added. Bowen continued to struggle with the officers after having the PAVA spray pointed at him, she said, and PC Thomson sprayed him in the face.
The officers managed to handcuff Bowen, the court heard, after he struggled violently and resisted arrest.
Defence agent John Good said his client had been out drinking with colleagues on the night of the incident on September 26 last year and had no memory of events.
Mr Good said Bowen had been a serving soldier for two years and a reference from his commander described him as a “high calibre” recruit. The solicitor said his client’s behaviour had been “out of character” and an “aberration”.
Mr Good said Bowen, who originally comes from Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, would be subject to internal discipline by the army, but it was unlikely to impact on his upcoming promotion.
Sheriff Matthew Auchincloss said Bowen had “let himself down on this occasion”, but had shown “genuine shame”.
The sheriff praised Bowen’s role in Operation Interflex and ordered him to pay £400 in restitution to a fund supporting police officers injured in the line of duty.
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