Police feared for their lives during violent attack

Leeds Crown Court heard the officers feared for their lives during the attack by Derek Ross.

Police went to Ross’s home in South Elmsall after his stepson sent desperate texts to emergency services.

A male and a female officer went to the house on Wesley Street at 9.15pm on January 27 this year to find him heavily drunk.

He punched the female officer around four times in the face, briefly knocking her unconscious.

Ross, 45, then used a glass bottle to hit the male officer over the head.

At one point he tried to smash the bottle so he could inflict a more serious injury.

Ross then gouged the male officer’s eyes and bit his arm as they continued to struggle.

More officers were called to the scene and Ross was eventually overpowered and handcuffed.

He spat at another officer and urinated in his cell after he was detained.

Ross pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two offences of assaulting a constable and two of criminal damage.

The court heard he has previous convictions for assaulting police officers and served a 39-month prison sentence, imposed in 2005, for wounding.

Christopher Morton, mitigating, said Ross had lost his job as a road maintenance worker with Highways England as a result of the convictions.

He said: “His weakness for alcohol is his stumbling block.” Ross was jailed for nine months.