A police officer has recalled the horrifying moment a criminal spat into his mouth.
Sergeant Sean Underwood, of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, spoke about the encounter on a BBC TV show this morning (June 14).
Sgt Underwood said: “There’s just that worry and immediate distress as to what’s just happened.”
In 2017 the father-of-two was sent out to Stokes Croft after reports about a man being aggressive.
When attempts to calm the person down failed, Sgt Underwood and a colleague decided to restrain him and carry him into the police van.
But the drama quickly stepped up a notch when the man’s behaviour took a surprising turn.
Speaking on the show ‘Critical Incident’, Sgt Underwood recalled: “As he was shouting and screaming, he turned and looked at me in the face and a big spit came out of his mouth and straight into mine.
“Your immediate reaction is to spit and drop and try to get the horrible stuff out of your mouth, but we were obviously carrying him at the time so we couldn’t just drop him.”
Beyond the initial shock, Sgt Underwood’s thoughts leapt to fears over his health.
He said: “There’s just that worry and immediate distress as to what’s just happened.
“I didn’t want to catch anything contagious that he may have had and I didn’t want to pass any risk onto my family.”
Speaking about his two children, he added: “I didn’t want to start giving them a goodnight kiss and pass anything on.
“It’s maybe a bit irrational but actually it was a real worry: ‘What are my kids going to get from this?’”
Sgt Underwood said the average member of the public does not know about the “disgusting” scenes which officers regularly come across.
The man who spat at Sgt Underwood was jailed for 12 weeks and given a £50 fine after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer and a member of the public.
You can watch the clip of his BBC appearance at the top of this page.
