Vengeful Morecambe thug jailed after he threw brick through police car window and hit officer in the face

A vengeful thug who threw a brick through a police car window hitting an officer in the face has been jailed by a judge.

The constable suffered serious facial injuries and now has permanent scars following the cowardly late-night attack.

George Jacob, whose criminal record totalled 70 previous offences, was sent to prison for 20 months at Preston Crown Court after pleading guilty to unlawful wounding and criminal damage.

Recorder Emma Fisher heard the injuries suffered by the officer kept him off work for a lengthy period and forced the RNLI to take one of its Morecambe lifeboats out of service because the policeman was also a volunteer helmsman.

Jacob, 42, was said to have snapped after the constable seized his electric bike because it was parked illegally on the pavement outside his house in Morecambe. An altercation followed in which he pushed the officer and then fled the scene to avoid arrest.

He came back moments later when the PC was sitting in his patrol car filling in paperwork from the incident. His bodycam captured the moment the driver’s side window was smashed by a “sizeable” brick and he was knocked almost unconscious.

In a statement to the court the officer said the attack had caused him to re-evaluate his role as a policeman, a job he loved and was good at. When a senior officer called at his home that night to tell his wife what had happened she thought he was there to tell her he had been killed.

Prosecuting lawyer Lisa Worsley said Jacob had been in a house in West Street, Morecambe in the early hours of November 22 last year when the lone patrol officer spotted an uninsured electric bike on the pavement outside. Jacob and another man came out and confronted the policeman, arguing the bike was not committing an offence and tried to push it into the house.

The officer grabbed hold of the back wheel but was pushed back. He told Jacob he was under arrest for resisting and ordered him to get down on the floor, but he ran off despite being warned he could be tasered.

The policeman got back in his car to write up what had just happened. His patrol car had its lights on front and back, was lit internally and the officer had his bodycam camera light on too. But suddenly Jacob returned and ran past the car throwing a brick which smashed the driver’s window and struck him in the face.

He was able to press his panic button for help and two fellow officers on another call nearby raced to the scene. They found him doubled up over the patrol car bleeding from his face and “very disorientated”. A brick was on the console inside the police car.

Paramedics arrived and gave him morphine for the pain before taking him to hospital where he was treated for severe lacerations inside his top lip, two chipped teeth, bruising to his face and fragments of glass in his eyes.

In a victim impact statement read out in court the PC said he had been a police officer for seven years and loved his job. But Jacob’s “cowardly” attack had made him re-evaluate his career, thinking it was no longer worth it.

He had been badly concussed at the scene and colleagues had said he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. He said he had given it a lot of thought and had realised he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself had Jacob not immediately run off.

In hospital his wife had been removing shards of glass from his eyes before doctors took over. He had feared his sight would be permanently affected. Even a week after the attack he was still having tiny pieces of glass removed.

A doctor said the lacerations inside his top lip would leave him with lifelong scars. He also had to have extensive dental work which cost him hundreds of pounds. For two weeks after the attack he was unable to eat solid food and had to drink through a straw.

He also told the judge he was a volunteer for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and due to his injuries had to step away from his work as a helmsman, meaning the lifeboat had to be taken out of service because of his inability to crew it “leaving lives at risk”.

The “spineless” attack had also had a significant impact on his wife and 18-month-old daughter. Not only was his wife left fearing she might have to bring up the child on her own if she got that knock on the door to say he was not coming home, but his daughter didn’t recognise him due to his facial injuries when he was released from hospital. She wouldn’t go to him but gradually began to acknowledge him after a few days and kept pointing at his swollen face.

The court heard that Jacob, of Springfield Street, Morecambe, had 45 previous convictions for 70 offences, including a number involving violence. In one he had been jailed for 28 months for grievous bodily harm and only two years ago had been sentenced to 21 weeks for assault by beating.

Barrister Anthony Horsfall, defending Jacob, admitted his client had caused “really serious harm” to the police officer. But Jacob had been intoxicated at the time and according to a psychiatrist he had a tendency to act impulsively when he had been drinking.

He had had a “very difficult” childhood and had gone through the breakdown of a long-term “toxic” relationship which had caused a deterioration of his mental health. He was remorseful for what he did (attacking the officer) and Mr Horsfall asked the judge to consider a suspended sentence.

Recorder Fisher said Jacob had thrown a “sizeable rock” through the window of the police car which caused the officer serious injuries. She said the injuries to his mouth had cost him a “considerable” amount of money in dental repairs.

“This was a particularly nasty assault and these were particularly nasty injuries. This is a case which clearly passes the custodial threshold.”

It was an attack, she said, where a weapon was used with premeditation and revenge (for the bike seizure). The likelihood of causing serious injury must have been high.

“Most important, however, (was) this was an attack on an emergency worker, a police officer doing no more than his job protecting us all.”

She sentenced Jacob to 20 months in prison for unlawful wounding and 14 days to run concurrently for causing criminal damage worth around £200 to the police car.