73-year-old urinated on the street and struck police officer on throat

A 73-year-old who was caught urinating on a town street struck a police officer on the throat while being arrested.William Griffiths, of Westfields in Tilney Saint Lawrence, appeared at Lynn Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, where he admitted assaulting a police officer.Griffiths was also initially charged with committing an act of outraging public decency – but this was withdrawn by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Prosecutor Stephen Munton said that on the evening of July 15, a police officer was on patrol on London Road in Lynn when he spotted Griffiths urinating in the street on the junction of Windsor Road.The officer pulled over and decided to tell him that his behaviour was “unacceptable”.There were members of the public passing by at the time. The officer was going to issue Griffiths with a dispersal notice, meaning he had to leave the area. However, the area of London Road in Lynn is a “no dispersal zone”, which meant the officer had to arrest Griffiths.When explaining to Griffiths that he was going to be arrested, the defendant grabbed the police officer by the throat and pushed him up against the police van. The officer was forced to use PAVA spray on him, and he was taken to Lynn’s Police Investigation Centre. The officer reported having bruising to his throat.The court heard that Griffiths is an alcoholic and had been drinking that evening. However, he did not appear drunk to the police due to his “dependency on alcohol”.In mitigation, solicitor Andrew Cogan argued that Griffiths did not grab the police officer by the throat, but simply caught his hand when moving his arm past the officer. Mr Cogan said: “It is a very unfortunate incident indeed. Mr Griffiths was caught short.”The solicitor said that nobody in the area seemed offended by Griffiths’ actions.“Mr Griffiths thought he was doing nothing wrong and thought he was being picked on,” Mr Cogan added.“He put his hand out and catches the officer. There was no gripping from him. He was simply upset from being arrested.”Griffiths was ordered to pay £75 in compensation to the police officer. He was also fined £120 and told to pay a victim surcharge of £48.