Emsworth pub landlady in court after brandishing Taser to ward off group in car park
The Coal Exchange’s manager Dawn Swift was trying to sort a car in the Emsworth pub’s car park when she was grabbed and kicked.
Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court heard the group had been causing problems inside and outside the South Street pub.
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Hide AdPolice were called just after 11pm on August 22 last year and the 41-year-old publican told an officer she was assaulted.
“She said a group of youths approached her and started a fight,” prosecutor Lucy Paddick said.
“Miss Swift said there were approximately 10 males and three females involved.”
A ‘dark-haired male’ aged between 18 and 20 ‘kicked and grabbed her’ so ‘she punched him back’, the prosecutor added.
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Hide AdShe added: “The officers spoke to a witness who provided footage of a female using a Taser on a male.”
When asked for the Taser, Swift said it was ‘gone’ but it was then retrieved from the car she was working on.
In court Swift admitted having a Taser, brandishing it, and putting it in a glovebox of the car she was fixing.
But Swift, who was said not to be interviewed by police, said she did not use it - and did not see anyone else do so.
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Hide AdProsecutors accepted her basis of plea that she did not use it.
“The crown can’t say who used the Taser,” Ms Paddick said.
In her plea she said: “I showed it to a group of males to try and scare them from the public house but I didn’t use it on anyone.”
Swift is said to have significant mitigation that will be put forward when she is sentenced.
Adjourning the case, district judge David Robinson said: “The sentencing guidelines suggest that the starting point for the court’s consideration is a custodial sentence in this case.”
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Hide AdProbation will now compile a report on Swift, who was bailed ahead of the next hearing on September 23.
Police previously said a 40-year-old woman and three men aged 52, 23, and 18, had been assaulted in the incident.
Swift is not the pub’s licensee. She admitted possession of a Taser.