Police officers smashed through a window to get to a child rapist who took a Ramsbury family hostage after being caught in the act earlier this year.
40-year-old David Watts had been found molesting a young child by the victim’s mother late on a night in June. In the morning, the knife-wielding sex offender took the family hostage.
Police were called to the house in the East Wiltshire village, breaking into the property when volunteer sergeant Turner saw a note being held by a child in a window stating: “Just break in, he’s trying to stab us.”
When the door wouldn’t budge, officers smashed into the house via a front window. Judge Martin Picton said that, once inside, officers “put their lives at risk going into a room with a man armed with a knife to save the lives of others”, according to the Swindon Advertiser.
Watts was shot with a Taser as police tried to detain him. In police custody, he told officers interviewing him that he had ‘no memory of the incident’ due to being intoxicated.
The lorry driver failed to engage with the justice system, leading to a trial held at Bristol Crown Court from Monday which he did not attend. By Wednesday, it took jurors under three hours to convict him of child rape, sexual assault of a child and false imprisonment.
Watts will be sentenced at a later date. He was remanded in custody.
