Emergency provisions to house inmates in police cells have been activated amid a shortage of prison spaces
(Picture: PA Wire)A man who spat in a police officer’s face has been spared a stint in jail after a judge said Britain’s prisons are too full to take on extra inmates.
George Paget, 30, assaulted PC Wayne Bird after being embroiled in a fight near to Leicester Square in September, attacking the officer as he was being arrested.
District Judge Michael Snow said he would normally have sent Paget – who has a long list of previous convictions – to prison for 26 weeks for the “disgusting” crime.
But he said last month’s announcement by the government, that emergency protocols to use police station cells for inmates as prisons were reaching capacity, had convinced him to suspend the prison term for 12 months.
“There is no doubt in my mind the offence is so serious that only custody is justified”, he said, reaching a 26-week sentence.
“Ordinarily that would be the end of the sentence, but the difficulty is currently the prisons are full to the extent that courts are having to use police stations to hold people in.
“Ordinarily it was unavoidable to impose an immediate prison sentence. But given the current state of the prison estate and how full it is, I’m pursuaded – just – to suspend the prison sentence.”
He added: “That is not a green light to people spitting in the face of police officers.”
Justice Minister Damian Hinds announced in late November the activation of the emergency protocol, Operation Safeguard, in response to an "acute and sudden increase in the prison population".
He said 400 police cells would be utilised for inmates, and sought to blame barristers who went on strike over Legal Aid rates for the situation.
“With court hearings resuming we are seeing a surge in offenders coming through the criminal justice system, placing capacity pressure on adult male prisons in particular”, he told the House of Commons, pointing out Operation Safeguard was last activated in 2008.
Paget, from Islington, admitted common assault of an emergency worker over the incident on September 29 in Cranbourn Street, outside the Wok to Walk takeaway.
Judge Snow said the officer, who had been called out to help break up a brawl involving Paget, “must have been put in significant fear” of catching Covid, hepatitis, or HIV after spit landed in his eye and mouth.
He ordered Paget to carry out 200 hours of community service over the next year, be under a 9pm to 6am curfew for the next six months, attend 15 days of rehab, and pay £520 in compensation to the officer.
