Man who was tasered after spitting blood on a police officer is jailed

By Paul Higgins

A thug who was tasered when he threatened cops with a pitchfork and spat blood on an officer was jailed for a total of nine months today. 

Jonathan Barton appeared at Craigavon Magistrates Court, sitting in Lisburn, having admitted a total of 17 offences across four bills of indictment committed on various dates between 26 December last year and 3 April this year. 

Jailing the 23-year-old, District Judge Nigel Broderick said the most recent incident when he spat blood on an officer and tried to bite a constable “I regard as the most serious” of all the offences because “given the current situation, to spit blood at a police officer is clearly an aggravating feature of any offence.”

Barton, who appeared via videolink from prison but who has an address at Alexandra Square in Lurgan, entered guilty pleas to two counts of disorderly behaviour, four of criminal damage, eight of assaulting police, resisting police, handling stolen goods and possessing a weapon. 

Taking the offences in chronological order, a prosecuting lawyer told the court how Barton and another unidentified male caused £320 of damage to an entrance door to a property on William Street in Lurgan on Boxing Day. 

Then on 23 January this year, police got a report about a Kawasaki scrambler being stolen from a secure yard and were investigating that when an “independant witness” said she had saw Barton pushing a scrambler into a filling station. 

He was arrested and admitted an offence of handling stolen goods. 

The next set of charges, the court heard, related to an incident on 12 February when an ambulance crew had to call for police assistance when they were treating Barton. 

When officers arrived however Barton “became aggressive and abusive to police,” striking the three officers and causing damage to a pair of spectacles and then at Craigavon Area Hospital, he damaged a defibrillator. 

The most recent incident was on 3 April when officers on patrol spotted Barton at Church Place in Lurgan and knew that he was wanted for a breach of bail. 

Barton ran off but they found him in a tear yard “holding a yellow pitchfork across his body, shouting aggressively.”

He tried to climb over an eight foot wall to get away but ended up sitting on top of it, cutting himself with a piece of glass. 

Due to concerns for Barton’s safety, an Armed Response Unit was called to the scene and after he went inside the property, where the occupants were “barricaded” in an upstairs room, “eventually he was tasered to bring him under control.”

“He spat a mouthful of blood at an officer and tried to bite him so a spit guard was placed over his head,” said the lawyer, adding that medical staff had to sedate him at hospital where he received 16 stitches to a hand wound. 

Defence counsel Jonathan Brown conceded that Barton has a “large volume of offences over a significant period of time” on his criminal record which started when he was just 13-years-old. 

That coincided, revealed the lawyer, with Barton “starting to consume drugs at a very tender age, at 12,” but that he had a “difficult upbringing” including witnessing his father being “abusive to his mother, both physically and mentally.”

“From about the age of 20 he has spent a vast amount of time in custody rather than in the community,” said Mr Browne adding that Barton is “probably more used to” jail rather than freedom. 

Jailing Barton, DJ Broderick said he was a “troubled young man who appears to struggle with addiction to drugs...with certain mental health issues and that, sadly, is reflected in a poor and very relevant record.”