Police dog ‘distressed’ when suspect tried to prise his jaws apart

A half-naked man sunk his teeth into a constable and tried to prise apart the jaws of a police dog, a court heard.

Junior O’Brien, 27, was seen wandering the streets of Woolwich, southeast London in his boxer shorts last July 17.

Prosecutor John Carmichael said police were deployed to Frances Street at 11.45pm.

‘A police officer saw Mr O’Brien in the street called out to him and he didn’t stop, they then started a chase of 6-7 minutes.

‘Other officers on Samuel Street came across him and had to detain him with some force.

‘They had to deploy a police dog to stop him and in the course of that he tried to pull apart the jaws of the police dog.’

The German Shepherd called ‘Teddy’ was distressed when he was attacked by O’Brien as officers shouted: ‘Leave the dog alone, leave the dog alone, get off the dog.

‘O’Brien was restrained, there was an ambulance that happened to be there, and the police officers thought the route of an ambulance was the best route.

‘In the course of the struggle Mr O’Brien bit the arm of a police officer, PC Joanna Ramadan, who was just doing their job,’ said Mr Carmichael.

PC Ramadan told the Old Bailey: ‘The paramedics were concerned about his heart rate, so they wanted to get him to hospital as he had been bitten by one of the police dogs.

‘He was taken on a stretcher to the ambulance. I left to go move some of the police vehicles out the way as we were blocking the ambulances route.

‘My police officers then asked on radio for us all to return to the ambulance

‘So, I went back up to the ambulance and when I got there, he was being restrained on the stretcher

‘He was lifting his knees up, I was concerned he was under the influence of drugs or ABD, acute behaviour disorder, that can be triggered by drugs.

‘We are taught to be concerned when someone is sweaty and so not wearing a coat because they are so hot and not very coherent.

‘So we held onto him, I tried to calm him down I told him we were just trying to help him we wanted to get him treated and on occasion he was trying to lift up his head he kept opening his mouth and I believed he was trying to bite my hand.

‘I told him not to bite that I didn’t want him to bite anybody, and we were just trying to help.

‘I had my knee placed on Mr O’ Brien’s right elbow to stop him from using his arms or body to hurt me and I let go of his head and one of my colleagues took hold of his head.

‘As I leant over to clip the strap in on the other side of Mr O’Brien my colleague had let go of his head, he lent forward mouth wide open, and he bit the forearm of my left arm.’

O’Brien, of Chatham, Kent, denies assaulting a police officer and causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

The trial continues.