A MAN who assaulted two police officers when they visited him out of concern for his safety has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Karl Roberts, age 43, pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting an emergency worker, which was introduced as a specific offence in legislation enacted last year.

The court heard that the assaults, on PC Steve Morrell and PC Andrew Ward, happened after the defendant had had an argument with his partner, and had stormed out.

He had subsequently sent messages to her saying that he had taken an overdose of prescription medicines and sent a picture of himself with a belt looped around his neck like a noose.

The partner alerted the police, who visited Roberts’s home.

Roberts told them to go away, and in the subsequent fracas, he headbutted PC Morrell in the face and punched PC Wood in the face.

Both officer suffered pain and reddening as results of the blows during the assault on August 15.

The court heard that Roberts, a warehouse operative, accepts the facts of the case and wished to apologise to the two officers he had assaulted.

He had consumed pain-killers and alcohol combined and was in “a bit of a haze”, district judge Ian Strongman was told.

The police officers themselves had said Roberts, of Vicarage Court, St Paul’s Street, Worcester, was in a “highly emotive state”, the court heard.

District judge Strongman said that assaulting emergency workers when they are going about their business of helping people was a very serious business, and Roberts’s use of a headbutt exacerbated the offence, since a headbutt counts as the equivalent of using a weapon.

He sentenced Roberts to six weeks’ imprisonment for each of the assaults, suspended for 12 months, ordered him to do 100 hours of unpaid work, and told him to pay £150 to each of the officers, plus costs of £185.