O’SULLIVAN: FINE FOR URINATING COP

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Southwark Crown Court/oliver wright/sa
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16 September 2011

with pix of O’Sullivan/elliott

beer…1

A policeman who doused a woman in beer after she brandished him ‘disgusting’ for urinating in the street has been fined £1,500.

Daniel O’Sullivan, 30, yelled ‘F*** off, or I will throw my pint over you’ before he drenched Paula Elliott.

He then punched Ms Elliott, 45, who had been in London to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday on the night of the attack, in the face leaving her in need of nine stitches.

Today at Southwark Crown Court a jury convicted the Metropolitan police officer of common assault, but cleared him of unlawful wounding after more than six hours of deliberation.

O’Sullivan had previously admitted throwing his drink and punching his victim, but claimed he had acted in self-defence after his girlfriend police sergeant Lorna Chinn had been hit.

He had told the court it was wrong for anyone to challenge him for relieving himself in public.

He is now expected to lose his job and be thrown out of the police force.

Sentencing O’Sullivan judge Michael Gledhill QC said: ‘You provoked the incident by urinating in such a public place and you continued to urinate when Ms Elliott remonstrated with you.

‘You then told her you would commit the offence of throwing the beer and you went on to do it, and at the time you were a serving police officer.

‘You were totally unaware as to the consequences of what happened to her or to yourself.

‘It seems to me that you have learned the lesson of your offending not least because as a result of your conviction you will no doubt be dismissed from the police force.

‘That is the cost you have are paying for this incident.’

Islington Borough officer O’Sullivan had been out drinking in Leicester Square with Ms Chinn and was on his way to the Candy Bar, in Soho, when he stopped to urinate in a nearby alleyway.

He and Ms Chinn had been in a relationship for four months, although she was in a civil partnership.

O’Sullivan claimed he had tried to ignore Ms Elliott initially but admitted throwing his drink at her.

He said he then tried to back away from Ms Elliott as she and her partner Kerry Boxall, who had returned to find out where Ms Elliott was, attempted to kick him.

‘I knew that I had thrown a punch,’ he said.

‘I do not remember it hitting, but I assumed that I had done it and accepted it.’

He added: ‘You just do not go up to someone and challenge a stranger for doing something, no matter how disgusting it is.’

Judge Gledhill fined O’Sullivan £1,500 and ordered him to pay £500 compensation and £500 towards the costs of the case, as well as a £15 victim surcharge.

O’Sullivan, of Hinton Close, Whittlesey, near Peterborough, denied unlawful wounding and common assault.

ENDS.

O’Sullivan DOB 28/7/80