A woman punched, scratched, and bit a stranger in the street after he told her off for kicking over bins, a court has heard.
Omsap Sanguanbun then assaulted the policeman who arrested her - the sixth time she has attacked an officer in the space of 18 months. A judge told the 25-year-old the way she had behaved was "intolerable in any civilised county".
Swansea Crown Court heard that on the morning of November 4, 2022, Sanguanbun was seen by passers-by leaving the drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre on Alfred Street in Neath town centre "shouting and swearing" and in an "agitated" state. Brian Simpson, prosecuting, said the defendant was seen kicking over bins on the street, and when one of the witnesses told her to stop it she attacked him by swinging punches - several of which landed - and scratching his face. The court heard the pair ended up on the floor with the defendant on top, and when the witness tried to push her off she sank her teeth into his thumb and would not let go. The victim eventually managed to get Sanguanbun off him, and the defendant walked off towards Windsor Road screaming and hitting herself in the head.
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Police were called and an officer found the defendant at the nearby railway station where she repeatedly tried to give him a train ticket. Sanguanbun was arrested on suspicion of assault and after a scuffle was placed in handcuffs - she then repeatedly kicked out backwards at the arresting officer, making contact with his knee and shin. While being taken into custody the defendant shouted at the officers dealing with her and tried to butt them.
The court heard the man the defendant attacked in the street suffered a wound to his thumb which broke skin and needed dressing, and he then had blood tests and a Hepatitis B vaccination as a precaution. In a victim statement which was read to the court he said he had gone through an anxious period waiting for the results of the blood test to see if he had been infected with any diseases as a result of the bite, and he also said the injury had impacted on his hobby of playing the drums in a local band. In his statement the PC who the defendant assaulted at the railway station said he had previously undergone surgery on the knee in question, and the kicks from Sanguanburn had exacerbated the issues with the joint. He said he went to work every day as a policeman to help people and, while the knew the job came with risks, he did not expect to be assaulted in the course of his duties.
Omsap Sanguanbun, of Geifr Road, Margam, Port Talbot, had previously pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) and to assaulting an emergency worker when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She had four previous convictions for six offences, five of which are assaulting police officers variously by kicking, scratching, and head butting them. In July last year the defendant was made subject of a community order with a rehabilitation course and an alcohol treatment requirement, and by the commission of the new offences she is in breach of the order.
Hannah George, for Sanguanbun, said the pre-sentence report before the court gave an insight into the defendant's mental health difficulties, and detailed how she would benefit from the support that was available. She said her client was "embarrassed" at her behaviour and said since being remanded into custody following her arrest her well-being had improved as a result of her abstinence from alcohol. The barrister said she had to bring to the attention of the court concerns raised by probation about the suitably of her living with her partner at their address in Margam - "a view not shared by the defendant".
Judge Huw Rees told the defendant her behaviour had been "intolerable in any civilised country". He said he had read about the defendant's substance misuse and about her possible diagnosis of an emotionally unstable personality disorder, but he noted the disorder had been deemed insufficiently serious to warrant a hospital order or compulsory treatment in the community. The judge said given the length of time the defendant had been held on remand in prison, if he were impose a sentence of immediate custody the reality was she would be released from custody in the near future without any further assistance and, in his view, that would not offer the public sufficient protection.
With a one-third discount for her guilty pleas Sanguanbun was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 18 months - comprising 12 months for the ABH and 12 weeks for the assault on the police officer to run concurrently - and was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course. The judge took no action for the breach of the community order and allowed it, and its alcohol treatment programme, to continue to run. Judge Rees warned the defendant that if she committed any offence in the next year-and-a-half or if she failed to comply with the community requirements she is subject to she would be brought back before him and, absent exceptional circumstances, then "as night follows day" she would be going to prison.
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