Prolific Scarborough criminal avoids jail after attacking police officer and carrying drugs

Owen Hill, 30, was arrested in October last year after police were called out to reports of a man in possession of cocaine in Falsgrave Road, prosecutor Brooke Morrison told York Crown Court.

Police found just over four grammes of the Class A drugs in Hill’s jacket and arrested him.

However, on November 25, police were called out to reports of a fight involving Hill at a property in the town’s Beulah Terrace.

They found him outside the property with a head injury.

He was taken to hospital where he became “irritable” with hospital staff and police officers and refused treatment.

Hill tried to leave the hospital, but police stopped him.

When they told him he was under arrest he resisted by “tensing his arms and pulling away”.

Two officers tried to take him to ground but Hill stumbled backwards onto a hospital bed, where he “used the handcuffs on his wrist to pull (a named officer) into his chest”.

“The handcuffs caused a small cut to (the officer’s) left cheek,” said Ms Morrison.

The officers finally managed to restrain him with the help of hospital staff and arrested Hill.

Hill, of Nelson Street, was charged with possessing a Class A drug and assaulting a police constable which was in breach of a suspended prison sentence.

Ms Morrison said Hill had 34 previous convictions for 76 offences including burglaries, robbery, lots of shop thefts, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, battery and possessing cannabis.

In December 2020, he appeared at the same court charged with carrying a blade and resisting a police officer, but a judge deferred sentence for five months to give him the chance to stay out of trouble and avoid jail.

Hill received a three-month suspended prison sentence for those offences in May 2021 because it appeared he had stayed out of trouble, but in fact neither the prosecution nor Hill told the judge he had committed shoplifting and drug offences in the intervening period for which he received conditional discharges at the magistrates’ court.

His solicitor advocate David Camidge said Hill’s offending was finally “slowing down” and he was now “engaging fully” with support services.

He said Hill had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) “but quite frankly he’s his own worst enemy”.

He said that supported-housing officers were trying to keep Hill out of trouble by monitoring his activities on CCTV, which had led to a “marked” improvement in his behaviour.

Judge Simon Hickey said it would be “unjust” to send Hill to prison and impede the good progress he had been making with the help of support agencies which had helped to “turn his life around”.

He said although Hill deserved to go to jail for his “deception” in not informing the court of the previous matters, he was prepared to give him “the benefit of the doubt”.

Hill received a 12-month community order with 25 days’ rehabilitation activity and ordered to pay the injured officer £200 compensation.