Fractured skull cop felled by single blow from thug
A POLICEMAN’S skull was fractured when he was savagely attacked by a drunken thug outside a pub in Burton.
Sean Sales, 38, was jailed after punching PC Derek Harrison so hard that he fell and cracked his skull on a kerb.
The officer was on his way to another incident when he saw Sales punching, kicking and stamping on Paul Pantall outside the Victoria Inn in Horninglow Road.
Nick Tatlow, prosecuting at Stafford Crown Court, said Sales turned on PC Harrison when the officer placed his hand on the defendant’s shoulder.
Sales swung round and hit the officer with a single punch that sent him crashing to the ground.
The officer has lost his sense of smell due to the injury and also has difficulty with taste and hearing. He also suffered facial palsy for six weeks.
Sales, of Field Lane, Horninglow, was jailed for a total of two years after he admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm on the officer, causing actual bodily harm to Mr Pantall and two charges of common assault committed inside the pub.
Judge Mark Eades told him: “You have a record for violence, you have a vicious and nasty temper and commit offences against complete strangers where you have used extreme force.”
The court heard Sales launched an unprovoked attack on the dance floor inside the pub, prompting other drinkers to intervene and throw him out.
Judge Eades said: “Outside the pub when Mr Pantall asked you what it was all about you attacked him, putting him to the ground, kicking and stamping on him until he blacked out.
“When the police carrier arrived you started to walk away and when PC Harrison came up behind you and placed his hand on your shoulder, you reacted by punching him and fracturing his skull.
“You had no idea who was approaching you from behind. It might have been a little old lady. It might have been anybody.”
Mr Tatlow said the violence began on June 17 last year when Sales punched a fellow reveller who had collided with him on the busy dance floor.
Sales also assaulted another man inside who intervened to end the violence.
He then assaulted Mr Pantall and PC Harrison after being thrown out of the pub.
