Portsmouth thug John Udy is jailed for spitting at police officers - and throws water bottle at head of probation officer in court

The dramatic turn of events happened as John Udy was jailed for his latest offences of spitting and assaulting police officers at Portsmouth Crown Court.

The ‘agitated’ 42-year-old was jailed for a number of offences that included spitting at a prison doctor and police officer and lunging at two other police officers with an empty litre bottle of vodka.

The Paulsgrove yob had also urinated in a police cell and damaged a police recording device during an interview.

Just as his sentence of 38 weeks was handed down to him, Udy, already en route to the cell below having heard enough, lashed out by throwing a plastic water bottle - with water spraying over prosecutor Ruth Reid’s notebook and bench where the bottle eventually landed.

Judge, Recorder James Watson QC, said the defendant was ‘agitated’ as he was finishing his sentencing remarks when the incident happened.

‘The defendant asked to leave court to go down to the cell but appeared to have picked up a plastic water bottle and threw the contents over the back of the probation officer who was sitting nearest to him,’ he said.

‘The water splashed extensively over the probation officer and over the notebook of the prosecution counsel.

‘The probation officer exhibited distress and left court for a moment to have time to absorb what happened.’

The judge said it was a ‘fairly obvious’ case of contempt of court before offering up two resolutions. The first ‘simple way’ was for the defendant to come back into court and apologise if the probation officer was happy with that.

The second option was for the probation officer to inform police.

She chose the latter after coming back into court having calmed herself.

Telling the judge of the incident, the probation officer said: ‘It was actually a full bottle of water that hit me on the head and shocked me.’

Recorder Watson added: ‘I’m sorry for the upset.’

Earlier, a protracted hearing had seen defence barrister James Caldwell plead for Udy, of Leominster Road, to be offered one final chance to avoid jail by complying with probation having spurned two opportunities with them in the past.

Despite the lawyer’s best efforts to have the sentence deferred until a pre-sentence report (PSR) was carried out, Recorder Watson proceeded straight to sentence.

Udy’s hopes of a probation report had not been helped after the probation officer told the judge the defendant had been ‘extremely abusive’ after turning up at their office and had a history of non-compliance.

The probation officer added: ‘There is no merit in a PSR.’

A deferred sentence proposed by Mr Caldwell for Udy to ‘carry on his path’ of apparent recent improvement also fell on deaf ears.

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After the water bottle incident, Recorder Watson said: ‘His behaviour rather underpinned the accuracy of the probation assessment.’

One of the police officers assaulted by Udy, said of his behaviour: ‘It is some of the worst I have experienced in eight years in the police force.’

Udy admitted four counts of assaulting an emergency worker, two counts of criminal damage and a single charge of possessing cannabis over a period from March 2020 to August last year.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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