A Swindon man accidentally assaulted a police officer after reporting his neighbour for throwing bins at his door, a court heard.
Magistrates today decided to impose a conditional discharge on Richard Fisher, 29, who claims to have suffered an “autistic meltdown” when officers attended the incident in April last year.
The defendant, of Margaret Leckie Court, Walcot, had called 999 about his neighbour who was reportedly lobbing bins at his address at around 6.30pm.
Officers arrived at the scene to find Fisher outside in a “heightened state”, according to crown prosecutor Kate Prince. She added that they asked him to go inside in order to try and defuse the situation.
However, the defendant pulled responding PC Telford and – whilst thrashing his arms around – struck the officer underneath his eye.
Advocate Emma Thacker, defending, said her client had called the police because he was struggling with a neighbour but felt “somewhat aggrieved” by the way the responding officers had treated him.
She told the court he had suffered was what described as an “autistic meltdown”, stating Fisher has autism and is currently being supported by the ADHD team at the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership.
Ms Thacker added that he’d apologised for his behaviour three times between his arrest and coming to court, accepting he had behaved poorly.
Admitting one count of assault by beating, magistrates decided to impose a 12-month conditional discharge. This means, in simple terms, this matter goes away if no further offences are committed during that time.
