Vicious drug dealer who stabbed undercover police officer at Stamshaw Park in Portsmouth jailed for 16 years

Ferocious Michael Enzanga, 20, fought like a ‘caged animal’ when he knifed PC Russell Turner twice in the back in Stamshaw Park on February 21.

The 56-year-old officer suffered a collapsed lung in the attack sprung when he tried to detain Londoner Enzanga with colleague PC Clare Parry after they observed drug deals in Stamshaw Park in Portsmouth.

PC Turner previously said the attack was like ‘Mike Tyson coming up to me and hitting me in the back’. He added it felt ‘like a hammer not a knife’.

Today Portsmouth Crown Court heard PC Turner felt a mixture of a 'refusal to accept I've been stabbed and one of disbelief' when he was attacked.

In a victim statement, PC Turner said he was airlifted to Southampton General Hospital and was there for five days. He was back at work 10 weeks later, returning to full duties six weeks after that.

But the officer of 14 years' service left Hampshire police soon afterwards – and said 'my family are all very relieved'.

Marathon runner and boxing coach PC Turner said he was surprised at his own anger at Enzanga.

In a statement read by prosecutor Dale Sullivan, he said he was 'angry because he stabbed me, he left me lying in my own blood. He ran off, denied it was him and what he did had such an affect on my colleagues'.

Married dad-of-two PC Turner said: ‘I can never forgive him for the upset, pain and emotional trauma he cause my family.’

Jailing Enzanga for 16 years with a four-year extended term, Judge Roger Hetherington said Enzanga is no 'innocent dupe' and led a 'hopeless attempt' to protest his innocence.

Addressing the drug dealer, he said: 'You would stop at nothing in order to try to save your own skin.’

The defendant had been beaten up the day before the stabbing while drug dealing. Police seized £900 worth of crack cocaine and heroin linked to Enzanga on February 20 and 21.

The judge said Enzanga is an 'experienced criminal' and his threats in custody after arrest 'betray any suggestion that you might have been an innocent at large', and added: 'You are immersed in drug dealing and its associated violence.'

He said Enzanga is an 'experienced criminal' and his threats to police in custody after his arrest 'betray any suggestion that you might have been an innocent at large'.

PC Parry, who said she was left ‘in shock and shaking’, raised the alarm as play worker Elizabeth Rivano from nearby Stamshaw Adventure Playground rushed to give first aid.

Outside court Ms Rivano told The News: ‘I didn’t do anything that anybody else wouldn’t.’

Officers called to the incident chased Enzanga, and fired a Taser at him. Two barbs embedded in his back but had no effect. He was caught under tarpaulin in a garden in Jervis Road after a plucky neighbour filmed him and called out to police.

Throughout the trial this summer Enzanga was sitting slumped in a chair in a secure dock outwardly seemingly barely interested in the proceedings.

Today as he was jailed the defendant did little to betray his emotion, simply holding the glass in the secure dock and rocking back and forth.

Portsmouth Crown Court previously heard the defendant has convictions for having kitchen knives in public dating back to November 2014, along with another conviction for having a knife in public in November 2016.

He also has two convictions for possession with intent to supply class A drugs, relating to crack cocaine and heroin in January 2017.

A jury convicted him of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, four charges of having class A drugs with intent to supply, having a knife in a public place and having criminal property - nearly £1,000 in cash.

Andrew Frymann, mitigating, said the case involved an 'endemic problem, namely county lines' with London drug gangs sending out young men as runners to street deal crack cocaine, heroin, or cocaine.

Mr Frymann said it was a 'dangerous business' with Enzanga 'beaten up' the day before he went on to stab the officer in an 'horrific attack'.

A probation officer who assessed Enzanga said he is 'very young and presented as immature,’ Mr Frymann said.

The report revealed the defendant was stabbed after he was first convicted of having class A drugs in 2017. Police had seized the drugs with Enzanga then locked into a drug debt to the gang he was working for.

Mr Frymann said: 'He himself was stabbed and then found to be in debt, indebted to that gang, and it's a circle or cycle, or a pattern, of offending that this court will be all too familiar with that has become particularly entrenched.'

A probation officer found Enzanga 'didn't seem phased by the prospect of a lengthy period of imprisonment'. That came after Enzanga was sitting with his head down throughout the trial, and now for parts of the sentencing hearing.

Chief constable Mrs Pinkney said 19 officers and staff in the county are assaulted each week.

Mrs Pinkney said: 'Not only do assaults on police staff and officers have a negative impact on the community but also internally to the organisation. On a personal basis, police colleagues suffer not just physical injuries, but also the psychological effects.

'Many find the return to frontline duties after being assaulted especially challenging or traumatic.

'On a wider scale, morale is significantly impacted when officers and staff see their friends and colleagues being assaulted and abused, which, in turn, can damage the ability of the force to recruit new people into the organisation.'