A BURLY six-foot tall defendant who grabbed a woman police officer around the neck and pulled her to the ground was ordered to pay her £150 compensation.

Richard Crane, 47, was jailed for a total of 30 weeks – 18 of them for assaulting PC Lynette Farley, a charge which has recently become categorised as an attack on an emergency worker.

He pleaded guilty at Llandudno court on Friday and also to using foul and abusive language which breached the terms of his Criminal Behaviour Order and to resisting another PC. Crane also admitted breaching a post-prison sentence requirement.

Diane Williams, prosecuting, described how his 89-year-old mother had called police to their home in Rockfield Drive, Deganwy, on Thursday. He was very drunk and she wanted him out of the house.

He was arrested but in a police vehicle beat on Perspex and became threatening. As officers sought to handcuff him he dragged PC Farley to the ground with him but she did not sustain an injury.

Mrs Williams told the court that the defendant, had appeared in the past for many breaches of orders and had received prison sentences.

A probation officer said that reluctantly it was felt custody was the only means of managing him at present because of his housing and drink problems and his failure to comply with those seeking to help him.

Nia Dawson, defending, sought a suspended sentence so that he could continue as carer for his mother. She had fallen out with him because he had tried to retrieve an emergency button she had buried in the garden. He accepted that he had then acted inappropriately after drinking.

Crane was sent to prison for 18 weeks for the attack, with a consecutive 12 weeks for breaching his Criminal Behaviour Order. Concurrent sentences of two weeks and seven days were imposed for resisting a PC and breaching post-sentence supervision.

Court chairman Graham Edwards told Crane, who must pay £115 costs, that the 18 weeks was for “grabbing an emergency worker by the neck and pulling her to the ground.”