Back to prison just months after early release

Friday 03 August 2018

A man has broken his suspended prison sentence and been sentenced to 18 months in prison after he assaulted three police officers while resisting arrest.

Ian Lewell, 44, was released from prison in February this year after appealing against a sentence in the Magistrate's Court that put him behind bars.

During the appeal, the Royal Court reduced his nine month sentence to a suspended sentence of seven months, as new footage of the incident had come to light, but now, Lewell has been sent away for 18 months, after he was arrested again in May for damaging property and assaulting police officers.

Pictured: File image of a pint being pulled in a pub

The incident occurred in May, when Lewell was ejected from a pub near Trinity Square after they refused to serve him any more alcohol. Police were called after a witness saw him punching three windows on an estate nearby - he was said to have punched the first two windows with clear intent on trying to break them, before punching the third, smashing through it, and then falling through the window afterwards.

When police arrived on the scene, they arrested him on suspicion of criminal damage, however he proceeded to attempt to resist the arrest.

Lewell reportedly attempted to headbutt an officer wearing a motorcycle helmet, dazing himself, and stamped on officers' feet as they tried to move him into the back of a police fan. He was also recorded on one of the officer's body cams shouting abuse at them.

Finally, it was reported that Lewell - who carries Hepatitis C - spat when he was being arrested, and some of that spittle landed on officers' trousers.

Alongside the prison sentence, he was also order to pay £546 in compensation to the officers, which will come out of his benefits. 

Judge Graeme McKerrell, who passed the original sentence before the appeal as well, said Lewell breaking the suspended sentence left him with no choice but to impose a custodial sentence. 

"Every sentencing option has been tried in the past and none have worked," he said.

"Unfortunately all the suggested progress you were said to have made seems to be not there anymore, and I have to impose a sentence that will protect others."

At the time of Lewell's appeal in February, Judge Russel Finch explained that the sentence was only changed because new evidence had been shown to the Jurats. He explained that video footage from the night in question illustrated that excessive force was not used in the assault and therefore Lewell's offence did not warrant an immediate custodial sentence.

Lewell was originally arrested and sentenced for assaulting a doorman at the Barbados club and bar in Town. But at that time, Judge Finch said the amendment was on the condition Lewell abstained from alcohol and complied with testing.